Awesome. What can’t 16-bit RPG sheen make better?
Jan 4, 2012
Dec 20, 2011
Drunk History Christmas
Drunk History is back for Christmas. I feel like I’m complicit in the death of his liver, but this is awesome.
Dec 16, 2011
Movie Reviews @ The Temple
The Muppets – Let’s be honest, this movie isn’t very good. Half the songs are nice, half aren’t really very good. I have no particular affection for the muppets (blastemy, I know), I just didn’t watch them. So the humor is not really for me. I hate to sound like a douche, but we are firmly post post modern nowadays. The self referential meta stuff doesn’t really work anymore. A couple of the jokes did, but most of them fell really flat. Jason Segal does a rather shockingly bad job. I guess it’s not his fault, he’s given this cheesy fake role. Hell, Amy Adams is an amazing actress, and even she seemed kind of lame. And holy balls did they look uncomfortable singing into the camera. It made me feel so awkward. Singing into the camera is dumb, guys, muppets can do it because they don’t have real eyeballs. So all this is true, and yet I leave the movie with an overall positive feeling. The thing is, it’s a very sweet movie. It’s a movie about people (muppets) overcoming, embracing who they are, a guy learning to have faith in himself, all that good stuff. Even though I’ve never seen more than 5 minutes of any muppet show, the movie left me with an overall cozy feeling, which I guess is the muppets’ special power.
The Green Lantern – Seriously, who decided it was a good idea to use MS Paint to create his mask?
The Beach – This is an old one I never saw. Leonardo DiCaprio finds an isolated beach and the community that lives there. Shennanigans ensue. It’s actually pretty good. It’s a very pretty movie, it’s a pretty compelling story. I discovered only afterward that it’s a Danny Boyle movie. He has a chance to be my favorite directory. 127 Hours was awesome, 28 weeks later genius, trainspotting if not enjoyable at least culturally important, and sunshine and slumdog are two of my favorite movies ever. I need to go watch his others (which wiki tells me are shallow grave, a life less ordinary, and millions) and findout of he sweeps it (I’m extremely nervous about cameron diaz in that middle one).
The Captains – Yikes. William Shatner made a documentary interviewing all of the captains. Genius idea right? Turns out, William Shatner is perhaps the worst documentarian in the history of cinema. Like, amazingly bad. So bad, a mockumentary would not PRETEND to be this bad. Just wow bad. That said, it’s interviews with some of the most pivotal actors of my young life. Stewart, Brooks, Mulgrew all WERE my teen years. Bakula and Pike came much later, but still. So no matter Shatner’s incredible ineptitude, I liked seeing this just to hear the stories. But let’s focus here, Shatner is a horrendous filmmaker. He is so up his own ass about what it means to play a captain. Every SINGLE question he asks them is either a) a setup for some cheesy opinion he has on what it means to play a captain, or b) a trap, he just wants to tell a story of his own. It’s organized and paced in such an insane way, Shatner thinks he is being deep, but it’s actually very shallow and weird. But still, if you have watched a few hundred hours of star trek as I have, it’s worth it.
Fame (2009) – I’ve still not seen the original of this, this one isn’t that good. I thought it was more about dance because it had a SYTYCDer in it. But it’s mostly a teen drama, with a bit of decent music, and very little dancing. Kind of lame, sorry.
The Green Lantern – Seriously, who decided that two pieces of green apple fruit roll-up would do for his mask?
The Next Three Days – This is pretty cool. Russell Crowe’s wife is imprisoned for murder (it’s unclear if she really did it) and is out of appeals. So he figures he’ll bust her out. It’s a pretty exciting thriller that seems kind of realistic through most of it. You can’t say too much about it, I guess, watching him go through the details of the breakout is just kind of cool. Sadly, at the ending it craps out and does some very silly convenient bullshit. The whole movie tries to be realistic in a cool way. But then everything just works out so specifically in the end, it’s really annoying. But still a good movie, I guess.
The Square – This is an Australian movie. It’s basically about a couple having an affair who want to make off with some money, bad things happen, things spin out of control, etc etc. I didn’t think it was too bad. Not great, not horrible, solidly in the middle. Very much a 2.5 stars movie, if only Netflix would let me do that. If forced, I suppose I’ll put it at 2 stars.
The Green Lantern – Seriously, how’d they get ahold of the Quake 1 engine to render his mask?
Monsters – You know, this is actually almost pretty good! It sounds like a horrible movie – the us/mexico border has turned into a kind of no man’s land because some aliens have crashed there. It’s this weird mix of war zone and animal sanctuary. Then a couple gets trapped there and has to get through. Sounds shitty, but it’s actually pretty cool. The movie has a bit of a low budget feel. The aliens, which are used sparsely (a good choice) actually look pretty good. There is something about the scenes that feels limited. It’s not like they have cheap sets, it’s mostly outdoors. I can’t put my finger on it, but it feels small in scope. Which is too bad, because it detracts from what is otherwise a really cool idea. Still worth seeing, I think.
The Fly – Woah, this is pretty gross! I’d never seen it. I guess I didn’t really know the story, either. I think it’s a pretty good movie! All these years later, and it’s a pretty solid horror movie. Much more in the tradition of Hyde or something –a scientist turning into a monster. And yikes is it gross. I’m not saying it’s the grossest movie I’ve seen this year. But I am saying it’s up there, and given that it’s 25 year old physical effects up against modern CGI, that’s pretty cool.
Set Up – Ugh, I just watched to see how bad this is. Not puke bad, but bad. 50 cent is some criminal, gets double crossed, tries to get revenge. Bruce Willis is in it for no good reason. Some other people too. Lots of people shoot each other, nothing interesting happens. 50 cent, to his credit, is no worse than anyone else in the movie.
The Green Lantern – Seriously, where’d the producers find that roll of christmas wrapping paper to use for his mask?
Dec 15, 2011
Dec 11, 2011
Movie Reviews @ The Temple
Rango – This movie is pretty fun. There’s not really a whole lot to say about it, it’s funny, it’s cute, it’s a nice adventure. There is the slight distraction of someone in the room yelling about how the Mojave desert doesn’t have saguaro cacti. But besides that, it’s a good movie. Plus, I was doing the yelling the stars in Wall-E twinkled when they were off planet. So, half a dozen.
Captain America – Well, better than Thor, that’s for sure. The more I think about Thor the less I like it. A few good hammer swings, and the rest of the movie kind of sucked. This one isn’t amazing, it’s kind of average in a lot of respects, but it wasn’t as boring as Thor. They do a fair job of getting the Cap ethos right. I’ve never been a cap guy, he was always too clean cut and boring for me. But if you are going to do him, you have to get the underlying stuff right. He is kind of painfully noble and good. He’s very much the Marvel Superman. Both of those characters can be very boring without the proper context and are a challenge to write because of that. But that’s the character, and they did a fairly good job of sticking to that blind nobility, so that was good. Action was alright. Dude with a shield just isn’t all the spectacular, at the end of the day. As part of a team in Avengers he’ll be great, I think.
It’s Kind of a Funny Story – Against all odds, this movie is quite good. It’s about a 16 year old kid who thinks he’s suicidal because his life is so hard. He goes into the psychiatric ward of a hospital to get help. He there meets a few wacky characters, including Zack Galifinakis playing as normal as he ever has, and also including a cute girl (of course). This movie is in imminent danger at all times of being horrendously cliché, cheesy, and trite. Oh boo hoo, poor 16 year old upper middle class white kid’s life is hard. But amazingly, this movie has just the right awareness of that weakness. It, and the kid, know that his life isn’t that hard and that some people have a lot worse to deal with. But a lot of us have lives that aren’t that hard, and it’s a fair point that we should all chill the fuck out and enjoy what we have. Even me saying that sounds trite, right? But this movie has an honesty to it, aware that it’s not the oracle of truth, but still has something good to say. On the flip side, I’m not sure how I would have react to this if I watched it while depressed. There is a tendency to get wrapped up in your own “problems” and reject any external opinion. So it’s possible a movie with a message on how to enjoy life will be lost on those who need to most.
The Adjustment Bureau – This movie is pretty good too. The premise is there’s a bunch of people whose jobs are to keep everyone on “the plan”. And if you deviate (on purpose or accident) they try to correct. Then someone tries to go off plan, for love no less, drama! Sounds kind of corny, and it is kind of corny, but it’s pretty entertaining. Mostly in a popcorn way, not a mind blowing way, but still fun to watch.
Hanna – Meh. I remember seeing the ad for this so long ago and thinking it looked awesome. A teenager girl assassin? Cool! And all the imagery of this pale girl in the pale scenery was very striking. Unfortunately, the movie just doesn’t live up. Too much talking, not enough fighting. Weird story that feels slightly non-cohesive. I wish it had been great.
Season of the Witch – Okay, so, this isn’t the worst movie ever. I know, crazy. It’s not good, it’s super duper average. Nothing about it needed to exist that you couldn’t get elsewhere done better. But all that being said, there is stabby stabby and fighty fighty and things look ok and the story is whatever and Nicolas Cage doesn’t totally annoy you. So it’s fine.
The Graduate – I had never seen this. It’s…. boring as hell. This is a great movie? This won oscars? It’s sooooo slooooooow. Dennis Hoffman, I now realize, is who Michael Cera has been basing his career on. He does awkward for 2 hours. It’s kind of amusing, his first attempts at sex are pretty funny. But the rest is just snoozefest. The whole rest of it is just not that interesting. I get it’s iconic, the whole under the leg shot. In fact there’s a fair amount of interesting cinematography. POV, reflections off mirrors, other stuff. But not enough to make it a good story. And then there’s the famous wedding thing at the end, which sparked an archetype that lasts till today. But that still doesn’t make it a good movie.
The Man Who Cried – Ok, so Christina Ricci is a russian jew, forced out to Europe, trying to make it. Then something with an opera singer, she bangs Johnny Depp the Gypsy for a little while, things go belly up, and she heads off to America. There’s nothing actively wrong with the movie, just boring. Neither an interesting look into immigrant life, nor a compelling story.
Mystery Team – Yikes, this is pretty bad. I like Donald Glover in Community and all, but whooboy. I mean, I see where they are coming from. There are some very funny moments. And where the rest of the moments (read: 95% of them) fall painfully flat, I get what they were thinking. They had ideas that were funny, things that should have worked. But the execution was really bad. The artifice of their ridiculously naïve characters wears thin literally in 10 minutes. I mean it, we watched the first 10 minutes of this probably 6 months ago, and I only just now forced myself to finish it. It was better than those 10 let on, but still pretty bad. I feel bad, because I see what they meant, and why that should have made me laugh. It was just too forced and felt pretty lame, sorry.
Insidious – I thought I heard this was amazingly scary. It’s waaaay not. It’s basically just Paranormal Activity (non of the found footage bs though) plus poltergeist. Really, more of the latter than anything. It’s not offensively bad or anything, but it brings absolutely nothing new to the table.
Trust – Wow this is a rough one. It’s about a young girl who gets tricked by an old guy online into meeting him, gets raped, and then the family tries to deal with that. It’s pretty brutally forthright with the subject matter. Uncomfortably so. I mean, if you make a movie about a creepy evil bastard who tricks/forces a little girl into sex, there are some things that have to come up. Showing the girl in this bathing suit he buys her, showing flashes of him kissing her and implications of worse. It’s really icky stuff. I don’t know how the actors did it, honestly. But then all the after stuff, is pretty honest too. A helpless dad, a family that doesn’t know what to do, and a a very very very confused girl. The girl does a pretty good job of expressing what can’t really be expressed. She defends him, she hates him, she loves me, she hates herself, it’s awful. And in the end the movie makes a really surprising choice to stick to their guns and face up to the fact that things don’t always work out. That you have to move on even though the fair thing doesn’t happen. I’d almost call it brave for a movie to make such a clearly unpopular choice. You could also call it exploitative, but let’s be generous I guess. It’s a pretty tough one, I certainly never need to see it again, but it was well done.
Paranormal Activity 2 – Didn’t like the last one, which everyone universally agrees was better than this one. So, I don’t like this one. Shocker. See my comments for any found footage horror movie ever. Copy paste.
Agora – Kind of an interesting movie, set in late 300s AD in Egypt. It shows the Christians coming to power, kicking out all the rest, and generally being fuckers. The main character is a philosopher woman (who was apparently a real person) who is eventually vilified because the bible says women are for baby making only. It’s an upsetting movie, because it’s based in reality. Christians really were fuckers (just like people in power before them). The destruction of the library is maddening (though it may not be true). It’s a pretty well done movie, though it may play with truth too loosely. The woman basically pre-discovers Galileo’s research 1300 years early. That at first annoyed me, but I suppose it’s not crazy. Some other greek philosopher pre-discovered Copernicus’ heliocentric theory 1300 years early, no one listened to him. And in the intervening years, I’m sure *someone* thought of elliptical orbits, it just didn’t “catch on” or whatever. So maybe it’s not crazy town. Anyway, decent movie!
The Warrior’s Way – Ehhhhhh. This seems like a good idea. Ninjas in the old west, awesome, right? Ehhhhhh. Not well acted, certainly. Not well scripted. Production values are ok, feel a little limited. The action is decent, it’s all slow-mo 300 style fighting, which is pretty cool. Watching the main dude take out ninja after ninja is kind of awesome. A 20 minute collection of the fights in this movie would be pretty bad ass. The movie, not so much.
TiMER – Okay, not really. It’s the future, everyone can go to the doctor and get an implant that tells them how long until they meet their soulmate. But only if the soulmate also has the implant, it stays blank until then otherwise. It’s an ok idea, I guess, pretty dorky. Besides the concept, the movie just isn’t done all that well.
Objectified – This is a documentary about industrial design. It’s a little bit in love with Apple. Granted, they are known for their industrial design. Then again, because they are known for it, people assume they are the end all, which is kind of self sustaining. It’s a kind of interesting movie, just about how people think about design. It’s a bit up it’s own butt, but it is a kind of interesting insight into the minds of designers. Worth the time if you are bored and the only movies netflix has added this week are police academy 28 and the 6th season of that show with that guy from the movie in the 80s.
Red State – This movie is basically about christian wackos. It’s sort of Kevin Smith’s version of the Waco standoff. The wackos kidnap sinners and kill them, eventually the authorities come in to stop them. That’s really all there is. People do a good job and all, but if it wasn’t Kevin Smith, I don’t think it would be a very noticeable movie. It’s got kind of an freaking awesome end to the siege, though, I’ll give it that.
Video Game Reviews @ The Temple
Okay, I’m really really behind on this. Largely due to a whole pile of indie games (damn you humble bundle!!!) that are piling up in my Steam account. That effing halloween sale didn’t help either. But, let’s make some progress. I was waiting to put more in this, but now the Thanksgiving sale happened and I am overwhelmed, I’ll push this out and do the next batch later!
Alpha Protocol – So this is basically Deus Ex. I know the most recent DE just came out, but I only buy games that are 5 bucks on steam, so I’ll get to that in a year or two. This is from a year or two ago, and it’s quite good! It was pissing me off something serious at first because it wouldn’t run. FIRST big budget game I try to play on my fancy new computer, and no dice. Letting steam do the PhysX install ended up being the secret. The game itself was actually very good. It looks great, it’s decently well acted. There’s nothing amazing about the story, it’s kind of a normalish secret agent story, but it was still good. I went half stealth half hacker, which was alright. I have the feeling that the different paths aren’t all THAT different. Hacking got me into some doors and computers more easily, but that’s only barely different than shooting everything in sight. But still, it’s fun. The action is fine, set pieces are a little monotonous, but not bad. I was actually pretty happy with this.
Amnesia: Dark Descent – And we have a new winner for scariest game I’ve ever played. Silent Hill is still up there. The difference there is perhaps that I played it on console. Playing on a huge TV from across the room just isn’t the same as a computer screen a foot away with headphones on. The first night I played in the dark too. God damn did it freak me out. It’s from the same guys who made the Penumbra series, which was alright. Those games were a bit buggy, I found I could kill bad guys by throwing boxes at them repeatedly, which ruins the suspense. What is amazing about this game is how utterly helpless you are. No weapons, you can’t run very fast, and you get scared easily. You have a health meter and a “sanity meter”. The more time you spend in the dark, the more freaked out you get. Also spooky events, and being near monsters, and looking at monsters decrease the sanity bar. You can’t fight, you can only hide, or run, but that doesn’t usually work. It’s basically a puzzle game, walking around finding the right pieces to get further into the castle. But hooboy did it scare me. More than once I considered stopping, that it wasn’t worth it. I’m sure you could play this game un-scared. Don’t put headphones on, and just blunder around. If you die, oh well, reload. But if you take just one step into that immersion and really act like you don’t want to die, it scares the bejeebus out of you.
Civ 5 – Oh look, I played a civ game again. I’m pretty sure I haven’t played since Civ2. It seems basically the same to me. I’m sure Civ experts have all kinds of opinions on how things are different, but it’s the same idea. I went through once as the Japanese on the normal difficulty, winning militarily. It wasn’t super hard. I was never in danger of extinction. Sometimes I made bad choices and started a war too early. But presto chango reload from 10 turns back and that was erased. It did kind of take over my life for a week or so, as civ tends to do. I don’t know if I’ll ever play another campaign, there’s just too much stuff to try. But christ, I got it for 7.50 on sale, I can’t really complain.
Atom Zombie Smahser – Indie game, top down looking at a few city blocks, zombies over running a city, try to get in and save as many people while fighting off the zombies. That’s a single level, many levels make up a city map and you go from place to place trying to save as many people as possible. It’s actually very fun, and pretty challenging. I only went through it once and managed to win (by getting enough points before the zombies got enough points, even though they had thoroughly destroyed most of the city). I tried to play again but found I didn’t have the patience for it. But perhaps I just have too many games to play
Hammerfight – This game is SO GREAT, but I got stuck on a level and really annoyed. It’s a physics game, but you are a little flying pod with a huge weapon attached (hammer, axe, sword). The physics come in in that you have to swing your pod around with the mouse to make the weapon swing, and then move the pod at the same time so that the swinging weapon hits similarly equipped enemies. It’s really fun and works pretty well most of the time. But then I got to this one level with a boss that can kill you in one mega-blast that he generally does right away, and I stopped. I feel like I’m missing something, how does a one-shot-kill boss make any sense? Sometimes he literally does it the moment I enter the room and I have to restart the level. I don’t understand, so I gave up, sad.
Revenge of the Titans – This is basically a tower defense game, but there’s resources involved, and research in between levels to develop new weapons. It’s pretty fun, cheesy little glowey graphics. But eventually I reached a point I couldn’t beat, and gave up. There’s a lot of that going on…
The Stanley Parable – This is actually a Half-Life 2 user add-on. It’s a very quirky little story. No fighting or actions. You are a worker in a building, and everyone disappears. You try to find out what happened. There is constant narration which tells you what to do next, unless you ignore it and do something else, in which case it gets mad at you. It’s extremely clever and very humorous. There are multiple endings depending on how you play. It’s very short, a single run through takes maybe 10 minutes. Very weird, but totally worth the time.
Event Reviews @ The Temple
As I Lay Dying – We saw this at Rogue Theater, a small theater on University. It’s a nice space, a little sterile, but fine. It’s a Falkner story, I guess, which I know nothing about. It’s a depression era type thing, about a family taking their mother to be buried. It’s a pretty sad story, the moral seems to be life sucks and then you die. For the most part the actors do a decent job. The doctor kept forgetting his lines, which was irksome, but everyone else was fine. The main guy and the daughter were maybe a bit better than the rest. Some of them, particularly the mother, the youngest son, and the religious neighbor, had a hard time deciding what their accent was. It’s supposed to be southern-ish, but it was occasionally british, or maybe scottish, I think I might have heard pirate in there. The sets were very simple, but good enough. There was an extraordinarily weird performance piece in the middle with one of the men taming a horse, but the horse was acted out by one of the women. I guess it gets points for trying something different, but it didn’t work. The musicians were extremely good, and there was a little jam session before the play started that was great too. All in all certainly a worthy experience.
Faust – Well, I tried opera again. The verdict is in – I don’t like opera. I really believe it has nothing to do with the quality. The best jazz player in the world doesn’t mean much to me, I don’t like jazz. The best opera singer in the world is still singing music I don’t like. Within the context of not at all liking the art form, this one seemed good. It’s about a dude (Faust) making a deal with the devil to regain his youth, based on some old German legend. The guy playing the devil was pretty great. He had the look, the attitude, and was my favorite voice singing music I didn’t enjoy. Everyone else seemed to do fine, though the friend, Siebel, was too quiet. In general the orchestra slightly overwhelmed the singers, really. The re-imagined opera did the AWFUL bullshit thing people do nowadays of putting words on the wall. It really annoys me, this emphasis of the themes in such a lazy way. The creator defensively points out in the program that he did not take anything out of the dialogue, that the words were purely supplementary. But I still think it’s lazy, if you can’t get your point across with just the story (and people have been doing so for almost a couple hundred years now with this opera), then you are doing a shitty job. On the flip side, the modernization was not as annoying as it often is, especially the devil in the modern context. And I thought the church and the mental ward set pieces were great. The harshness of the lights in the mental ward had a real impact. And the entire church seen was fantastic. But, it’s still an opera, oh well.
Premium Blend – This was great again! We went 2 years ago with a pair of free tickets on a whim. We missed it last year to my great dismay, but we got there this time. I think it wasn’t as good as last time, but still very good. Last time there was more variety, I feel. This time was all ballet and modern, with one exception. The opening ballet was pretty impressive. There was some girl who was maybe a big deal, but I didn’t think she was that great. The main dude was very very good, though. We were in the second row and for the first time I could see how much work the ballarinos (is that a thing?) had to do. Especially since she was kind of sucking, it was all his job to guide her and correct her spins and such. And some of the lifts were pretty impressive. The second ballet piece wasn’t so great, and had some horrendous outfits. There was an extraordinarily quirky modern thing, where the 3 dancers were a punctuation mark. It wasn’t my favorite, but it was cute. There was a reeeeeeally modern thing centered on the idea of how we order at starbucks having something to do with your personality. The dancing was good, but the theme was obnoxious. And they did all this meta stuff where the dancers talked and such. It was the worst part of the show 2 years ago when they did that, and it was this time. I’d rather dancers just dance. The stand-out was this tap/jazz/swing/ballroom thing. It was soooooo great. I don’t really love tap, I appreciate it, but I don’t end up enjoying it that much. But this was just awesome. They would all tap individually, then pair up for swing/ballroom type dancing, and go back and forth, it was freaking fantastic.
Dec 2, 2011
Nov 23, 2011
Nov 4, 2011
If Quake was done today
The guy is overacting, but this is hilarious. And showing real action at the end is pretty awesome.
Oct 30, 2011
Movie Reviews @ The Temple
Hayao Miyazaki Edition! So we decided to watch all the Miyazaki movies recently. Unfortunately, I’m only writing this now that we’ve gotten through 90% of them, but oh well. Also – I didn’t watch Spirited Away because I had seen it before. Now I wish I had, to refresh, I remember thinking it was too surreal for me. And we saw Ponyo back when it came out. That one was also cute, also pretty weird.
My Neighbor Totoro – I think this ended up being one of my favorites. Two sisters encounter these forests spirits at their new house and have a few adventures. It’s very weird, there’s a flying cat bus (that’s a giant cat in the shape of a bus that you sit inside, not a bus for cats). But it was very sweet and had a heroic female lead with no romantic BS. What we noticed in the first few HM movies we saw is strong female characters whose movies are NOT defined by finding a man, which we loved. The fell apart in the last few we watched, sadly.
Kiki’s Delivery Service – Another really cute one, also one of the better ones. A young witch goes off on her own, has some adventures, and succeeds. There is a boy who likes her, but it’s not the point of the movie. The point is her finding her place in the world. It’s a lot of fun. Far too many shots of Kiki’s underpinnings for my tastes, though. Mr. Miyazaki has some serious issues with under age girls’ swimsuit areas.
Princess Mononoke – Holy shit, what happened here? We were just getting used to the cute thing of these last movies, and now this gore fest? the fuck? Dudes getting their arms and heads chopped off, blood everywhere, jesus christ. I actually really liked most of the movie, though. The way they did nature vs. man/technology/pollution was actually cool. I liked the action, and the blood didn’t bother me. Sadly, the movie goes to crap at the end. First of all Mononoke, who is a bad ass killer in the beginning, turns into a weak woman who needs saving, which pisses me off. And then they just wrap the whole thing up with the stupid love story and NO damn resolution of the man vs nature stuff. Boo.
Howl’s Moving Castle – I think this might be the best of the bunch. It does have a love story, which doesn’t thrill me. But it’s mostly the woman who is the strong one, in the end. But the fantasy of it is quite fun. Calcifer is a fantastic character. Howl is a whiny goth, but sort of in a charming way. It’s a very cool movie.
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind – Eh, not as good. Also a man vs. nature thing. Perhaps a better resolution than Mononoke, but the movie is a bit weirder and didn’t really connect for me. Also – a lot more looking up skirts while a girl flies around, Hayao. Not a bad movie, but low on the list.
Porco Rosso – This one is actually pretty fun, maybe #4 behind howl, totoro, and kiki. An italian air force pilot after WW I gets some curse that turns him into a humanoid pig. He goes around bounty hunting, being charming and surly. Things happen, there’s some fun plane action, some funny humor. This one ends explicitly without telling you what happens which is kind of cool, but you can kind of assume.
Lupin the 3rd: The Castle of Cagliostro – Hm, one of these is not like the others. This movie is totally different from all the rest. I guess Lupin is an established character, so maybe that hindered Miyazaki. But it just seemed so different. The animation, plot, and humor felt american, not like Miyazaki at all. It was kind of slap sticky and silly, but not in the weird fantastical way that Miyazaki normally is. Felt more like an episode of inspector gadget than anything.
The Cat Returns – Now this is back to good Hayao stuff! This is exactly what I want from one of these movies. Whimsical, fantastic, fun, with a nice female heroine (still the problem of little girls with too short of dresses, sadly), varied characters and a weird ass world. This one is about a girl who gets pulled into a cat world – they are still house cats, but otherwise completely anthropomorphized, they talk and walk and wear clothes and use things. Crazy things happen, it’s quite kooky, and it all works out in the end. Great!
Castle in the Sky – I’m not sure about this one. We watched it in 3 or 4 parts. The first N-1 parts I wasn’t really digging it. I’m not sure why, it had the same sort of things that are likable about Miyazaki movies, but somehow I wasn’t on board. Yet in the last part, I was pretty engaged, amused by the pirates, happy with the events. Maybe the busy-ness of everything external to this movie distracted me too much to enjoy the first parts, which isn’t fair. Or maybe this one just isn’t as good as the others, not sure!
Oct 23, 2011
Movie Reviews @ The Temple
Thor – Meh. The movie is fine, its got some okay fighting. The opening thing in Jotunheim was pretty cool. It’s interesting, it wasn’t really a comic book movie. More of a generic fantasy movie. Which is fine, I suppose, even could have been a plus. But the movie just wasn’t all the captivating. Not sure why. I guess the acting wasn’t great on some counts. I never have really cared about Thor, that probably doesn’t help. In their defense, I really didn’t think they could make Thor into a movie. So the fact that it’s not horrendous is somewhat impressive. I do like that they made godhood into advanced science of the magical variety. Cuz having a god in the mix is just dumb. And the 9 planes being planets is cool. Movie was just kind of okay.
Commando – Aw, I thought this would be good. I had never seen it. I thought it was a war movie, it’s more like a kidnapping movie. It’s very cheesy and 80s. Lots of Mr. Freeze-esque lines out of arnold. But the action just isn’t that interesting. Maybe it was bloody for the time, but not really now. And it’s just sort of standard shoot guns, guys die, nothing creative. Kind of bummed!
Trick ‘r Treat – Ha, what’s anna paquin doing in this? To its credit, the movie tries to be more than just a gore fest. It tries to play with time and perspective to go back over the same events with different people. I can see how that seems like a good idea. Didn’t really work though, it was just too silly to get interested in the intertwining events.
Deadfall Trail – Another well intentioned movie. 3 guys go out into the wilderness, crazy mostly-not-supernatural shit happens, they go nuts and turn on each other. That has the potential for an interesting psychological type movie. But it feels horrendously amateur, something about the filming and acting, I don’t know. Didn’t think it was very good.
Hunter Prey – On the flip side, I reacted very positively to this one. It’s certainly an indie movie, but some how when I first started it it, I thought it seemed like a web sci fi series. And all of a sudden I thought, they, this is really good for what it is. Some dudes are trapped on a planet, chasing a prisoner, things happen. It’s very small, there’s only a few characters. And in a sense the sets are small, not a lot there, but they do it out in the desert like they are on a remote planet, and it totally works. Such a smart way to give your small budget a big/realistic feel. The acting is rather decent, and though the effects are a little on the cheap side, they aren’t bad. Totally shocked that this was not a bad movie.
Hobo with a Shotgun – It’s been a while since I mentioned the Mother Night syndrome. That was a nick nolte WW II movie that I remember being very bad except for the quote “be careful what you pretend to be, eventually, you are what you pretend to be” or something like that. This movie, like the grindhouse movies and machete before it, pretends to be shitty. It succeeds.
Freakonomics – The movie version of this stuff wasn’t that good, which is sad. I really like the freakonomics guys, I listen to the podcast, it’s very good. They are kind of crazy economists, and that does (to me) force a limited perspective on some issues that doesn’t really make sense. But the book is good, and this movie is meant to elucidate a few examples from the book. But they spend WAY too much time on the sumo thing, and the rest of the examples just aren’t done all that fascinatingly. Sad, I still gave it 3 stars on netflix just cuz I like them, but it’s more a 2 star movie.
Seventh Moon – Two people get attacked in China. Um… that’s all I got. It wasn’t good.
From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas – I realize no one thought this would be good. I just love the first one so much. In this one, 5 bad guys get turned and fight each other. The movie decided to go with bats, that was a weird choice. Bats aren’t really very scary. And they also generally can’t chew through steel cables. Yes, I know, these are magic vampire bats. But still, not very scary. Otherwise it’s an expected amount of blood, some boobs, and that’s it. Crap.
Brothers – This movie is pretty good. The shocker I think is Toby MacGuire pulling off the part of a troubled soldier returning from being a POW. When the movie first started, I’m thinking how can he even pull off being a tough soldier. But man does he get that haunted look in his face like nobody’s business. He’s pretty scary (much scarier, for example, than bats). The drama of the supposed love triangle isn’t what the trailer makes it out to be (stupid god damn trailers). Mostly it’s about him breaking down, and that is done well. It’s a bummer of a movie, I never need to see it again, but it is a good one.
Harry Brown – Who doesn’t like a little vigilante justice? Michael Caine (say it with me, in a british accent, “My Cocaine”) is an old man watching his neighborhood go to shit taken over by young hoodlums. Eventually says eff this and kills a few. It’s a weirdly prescient movie, as it features a huge riot, remarkably like the riots that happened a couple months ago in London, but that happened 2 years after this movie came out. Not that riots are a new thing, but it was arresting to see that. People do a good job, it’s generally a good movie. It doesn’t have much of an ending, but maybe stories like this just don’t have endings.
Paintball – Sooooo, some people go to play paintball in the woods. Then some people start killing them. They are in some game they didn’t know they were in, and have to get out. It’s not nearly as bad as it sounds, actually. For an indie movie it actually looks really good. If my friend had made this movie, I’d be thrilled for them. At the end of the day, it’s another “oh em gee, you are in this crazy totally-possible situation, how do you get out” movie, which isn’t my thing. It’s not even like I would seek this movie out, there’s nothing special about it. But bonus points for doing what it meant to do, I’d be proud of myself if I made it.
Assault Girls – 3 Japanese girls play some sort of real life video game. Kind of like final fantasy, in real life. The crazy dude player seems very FF to me. It’s very shiny with its digital set pieces and digital almost everything. Some of the effects are pretty cool, especially given that it was presumably low budget. It’s kind of neat, the idea of playing a video game like that. But at the end of the day, it’s fairly narrow in scope and not all the captivating.
Labyrinth – I think I saw this once, maybe, or maybe just parts. But seeing it now, it’s pretty good! Bowie is freaking weird, I knew he was in it, I didn’t know he was a bad guy, or had such a major role, or that it is essentially a musical staring him. That’s all kind of weird. But the puppetry is very good. It’s sad because all the puppets totally hold up. They look as good as they ever did. Now, maybe you don’t like puppets, fine, you wouldn’t have liked it then either. But if you appreciate that style, they look every bit as cool. The CG effects, however, look like ass. I wish they hadn’t put them in, they were totally unnecessary. Jennifer Connelly is good for maybe the only time ever (for me). It’s fun, it’s a good movie.
The Dark Crystal – On the flip side, this sucked. Granted, some of the puppetry is amazing. Probably the best I’ve ever seen. But the main character is correspondingly awful. And the story and acting are just pretty crap. I’m glad I know what skeksis is, now. Sometimes it comes up in nerd culture and heretofore I had missed the joke. But that’s really all this movie did for me.
Tron: Legacy – Not as bad as I thought it would be! Not nearly as bad, honestly. It just looked so bad. I’m not saying it’s amazing, but I’d give it above average. It’s fun, it’s flashy, it’s got little ninja flights, it’s got great music (the one thing everyone seems to agree on), the acting is fine. The CG jeff bridges is horrible. Maybe you can excuse that in the digital world, cuz he’s some crappy digital version, I could buy that, and they could explain it away in the movie. But the fact that he looks like that in real life is really weird. But besides that, honestly totally a good time.
Conan the Barbarian – Um, I know this is supposed to be great. This is the original I’m talking about here. But the fighting is super lame. No one ever thought the acting was good. The story is a decent take over the despot type thing, but obviously nothing special. I don’t get why this is supposed to be great?
Exam – Hm, weird british movie about 8 people who go into a room to take an exam to get a job. It’s kind of a psychological thriller. It’s entirely in this room, entirely with these 8 people, the administrator, and a guard. For the most part, I actually quite liked it. It was very small scale, but kind of a cool exploration of this really weird situation. But in the end, they didn’t know where to go, and went somewhere stupid. It gets too crazy, and then has a “twist” that’s not interesting, and a conclusion that makes no sense at all.
44 Inch Chest – Weird movie. Some guy’s wife cheats on him, so he and his buddies kidnap the other man and beat the living shit out of him, interrogate him, and terrorize him. That’s really the whole movie. At first it seems like just a fantasy reenactment movie, written by some guy who obviously was cheated on. In the middle for a bit it starts to seem more interesting. But then it ends kind of uninteresting again. Didn’t really get it.
The Accidental Tourist – I’m not sure where I heard this was good, but they were wrong. It’s about a guy who writes travel books. He and his wife separate, he meets this kooky (and I mean KOOKY) woman, has a relationship, eventually has to decide between the old wife and the new woman. It’s monumentally boring. That’s kind of on purpose. The man is very monotone, not only in voice, but in personality, and in spirit. He is a nearly dead person, which is why he has trouble with his wife and is attracted to the kook. It may sound like a good idea to make a movie about a boring guy, but it turns out that just makes a boring movie.
Oct 21, 2011
Oct 14, 2011
Oct 6, 2011
Oct 5, 2011
Stop motion ninjas
Stop motion went through a real slump for the past couple years, it just all seemed samey. But this stop motion choreography stuff is great.
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