Friday, March 25, 2011

127 Hours: 5 stars

Movies with little dialogue are hit or miss. There can be so much that could go wrong and might not appeal to the viewers. And yet there can be so much that could go right. In 127 Hours, Danny Boyle and James Franco pull it off and it never gets too boring or slow.


There isn’t much to say about 127 Hours, not much to critique. However, what I can say is this: James Franco is amazing. His performance in this film might be his best ever. He truly is a light in the dark times of young American actors. From the very first shot of him in the film, he takes us into this character and we love him the whole time. When his arm is smashed by the boulder, he doesn’t scream, but we do. When he struggles to push the boulder, we struggle too. When his knife is just out of reach, we are reaching for it too. Sympathy is the major back bone of this film (not pity). And when he cuts off his arm, the viewers can’t look away. His bones snapping and cutting the nerves with a dull Swiss Army Knife, we are fixed on him. It’s painful to watch, but we still are watching closely and hope that are thoughts are pushing him forward to escape.

That’s really all I got. James Franco carries this movie with his one arm. He lifts it up as he goes down the canyon. He is the one moving this film. I haven’t seen any of Danny Boyle’s other films like Slumdog Millionaire or 28 Days Later or Trainspotting, but I now want to. It is so moving, tragic, and gorgeous. I loved this movie and I highly recommend this film.

Later this month: Joe Wright Marathon (Hanna, The Soloist, Atonement, Pride and Prejudice)

Early next month: The Original Star Wars Trilogy and Jurassic Park Trilogy and a Lasse Hallström Marathon (The Cider House Rules, Chocolat, The Shipping News, and Dear John)

How to Train Your Dragon: 5 stars

While Wall-E, The Lion King, and the Toy Story trilogy are my five favorite animated movies, there is only one movie outside of Pixar and Disney Animated that I love unquestionably and that is How to Train Your Dragon. There is so much to love in this film. One of them is that DreamWorks doesn’t try and sell the film based on voice-talent alone *cough-Kung-Fu-Panda-cough*. The studio sells it because they believe they have a great product, and they really do. This film is art, not simply a fun film to takes your kids. If only all animated films were made in this way, the genre will do so much better.


I have always believed that animated films outside of Pixar, and certain Disney films, were made specifically for kids and appealed only to kids or adults who like childish films (not in a bad way, however). I just am not a child at heart and films with the wistful humor and easy laughs aren’t as much fun for me to watch. Shrek, The Prince of Egypt, and The Road to El Dorado might have been the CLOSEST that I have seen outside of the two previously mentioned studios that I liked. Then I saw this film and I now have hope that there might be a change, but then Megamind came out and my hope went out the door (but that’s another story). I truly hope that in the future this genre will do better.

Now, why did I like the movie? It has such visually stunning animation that looked beautiful and crafted (Pixar is the best example; watch Wall-E) and something was quickly put together in a few months even though it wasn’t. The flying sequences were almost reminiscent to the space scenes in Wall-E with its elegant color schemes and majestic camera angles. The lighting looked real, and in fact, the hired one of the greatest directors of photography to work on the lighting for this film to make it look as real as possible, which I enjoyed. Lighting is key in animated movies and can add more depth to the picture.

Another major plus in the film is John Powell’s music in which he was the first man to be nominated for a best score outside of Pixar and Disney Animated films and it was his first nomination as well. Everything in this score has a point; every second needs to be there. Powell composed the greatest theme of the past year and quite possibly one of the greatest I have ever heard in many years. It is emotional, moving, tragic, comedic, and uplifting. No electronic sounds are added into this piece which would have destroyed the atmosphere it creates. Listen to it on youtube, it is worth the listen.

Then the voice talent is also truly exceptional. There were only three voice actors that I knew in the film, but I didn’t recognize anyone else. Jay Baruchel and Gerard Butler were fantastic and believable as Hiccup and his father. And America Ferrara was descent as the love interest, Astrid. It’s soothing and peaceful to not hear all of these famous actors every second. It’s good to hear other people to talk and not have thirty celebrities’ voices being jammed down my ears for only two or three lines each *cough-Kung-Fu-Panda-cough*.

Over all, a great story that actually looked real even though it had fantastical element and that sounded real with not so famous voices and with music that was both epic and still tame.

Thank you, DreamWorks Animation SKG. I love it.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Star Wars: The Prequel Trilogy

After watching the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, I have come to the conclusion that these films are some of the worst I have seen in a long time. I found it really hard to watch through these films for many reasons. I could list all of the things that are bad in these films or right a straight forward review, but I am not sure if that will work in this case. So, I have divided the film into its many different departments and discuss what I thought of each of those and how they improved or worsen or stayed the same throughout the trilogy of films.


Acting: Oh, boy, the acting is one of the two biggest problems in this film. Almost every problem can be justified by the acting or the horrendously written screenplay by George Lucas. In the first film, Jake Lloyd was the actor cast to play Anakin Skywalker. He is one of the worst child actors I have ever seen. Unexpressive facial expressions and emotionless line reading become his performance which is the gate way to an even worse actor Hayden Christensen for the next two episodes. Not only is there emotionless line reading, but sometimes it seems like he doesn’t even care. “It’s not fair” that the audience has to suffer through this kind of torment.

Not only are these actors bad, but there are two other actors in these films that are as bad as Christensen. Natalie Portman might be one of the worst actresses at work today; one of the hottest, but definitely one of the worst. She is right up there with Jessica Alba, Halle Berry, Nicole Kidman, and Penélope Cruz (however, none of the actresses are as good looking as Portman). One scene in particular is when Anakin is choking her, she just gasps a little. And before that, when she gets all flustered she starts to shake her head. Seriously, watch any of her movies and whenever she gets upset or flustered like that she starts to shake her head again and again (Heat, V for Vendetta, The Professional). At least she has one good performance for Black Swan, but that doesn’t matter. The other actor is Ian McDiarmid as Palpatine. He was decent for a little bit in Episode I, but then the second and third he starts to become worse and worse. As soon as he reveals himself as a Sith Lord, he starts to speak very slowly and cackles even more. Really? I didn’t know that the Emperor was an evil witch getting his pretties. He draws out all of his lines at a slow pace and makes his voice deeper. And he can’t fight worth a darn. The fight scene with him and the four Sith was the most choppiest, awkward, dull duel I have ever seen.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t any good actors here. There is still Liam Neeson and Pernilla August as Qui-Gon Jinn and Shmi Skywalker. Both play these characters very well or at least as well as they could with such a bad script. And of course Ewan McGregor may have been Lucas’ second greatest achievement in all the Star Wars films (the first casting Harrison Ford the Original Trilogy). He plays Obi-Wan Kenobi perfectly, again as well as he can with a bad script. Then there is Frank Oz giving the voice for Yoda, Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu, Sir Christopher Lee as Count Dooku, Terence Stamp’s cameo as the former Chancellor Valorum, Jimmy Smits (of West Wing and Dexter fame) as Bail Organa. And lastly Darth Maul. ‘Nough said.

Script: The story is wonderful. The story is well thought out and well crafted and I have to give Lucas props for that. It wasn’t the romance in the films that irritated me about the script, it wasn’t the one minute transitions from scene to scene that bothered me, and it wasn’t that the Force turns out to be nothing more than organisms living in everyone’s cells. No, it was the execution and dialogue of the script that bothered me most. And not only bothered, it made me angry and gave me a head ache. I found myself yelling, not at the actors, but at Lucas, saying “Why would you have him say that?” or “What the Force was that all about?” The dialogue in the film was choppy. And when I use the word choppy I mean that it was short, unimportant, and pointless. There are even scenes where it is word for word from another scene. Can they ever use a different term than “arrogant”? And the corruption of Anakin was so abrupt and stupid. How could he have fallen that fast and to a weakling such as the Emperor? There were so many questions that have are rapping around my brain. Why would he go with the Emperor who said that he has a lot of power but then says he is too weak? Why would he think being on the Jedi Council was insulting since he is not a master? YOU’RE ON THE COUNCIL AT AGE 30! GET OVER IT! COUNT YOU F-ING BLESSINGS! Why would he try to kill Padmé if the whole thing was to save her? And then there are other questions from the previous two that I never really could answer. Why would Jar Jar be promoted to general when he had no prior military background and was previously banned for clumsiness? And why did he get elected as a representative of Naboo? In Episode II, why would R2-D2 be powered down if he was supposed to be watching Padmé? Why would Padmé roll through the grass with Anakin if she didn’t want to show that she loved him? The plot holes just keep piling up. And Anakin is just a whiny boy and is never a true adult. It just like watching a 9 year old boy saying it’s not fair that his parents aren’t buying him every toy in the store.

Music: The music starts off really well with an almost complete slate of brand new themes. Episode I was a creative chance for Williams to do something new and he did. But then it went downhill after that and no longer does he compose a lot of new music. He rehashes the same cues and themes as before and there is very little originality. What new music he composed was great, but it becomes so much in the third that the new music is dwarfed by the previously written music. Not a good move Williams. His two best pieces, however, for this trilogy, is the cue for the Darth Maul/Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan duel and the love theme for Anakin and Padmé. But ultimately, I am really disappointed after the first film.

Fighting: The battles are almost the only thing redeemable in the whole film. The space battle in Episode I is worthy of the battles from Episode IV and VI, however, I would like to have seen more of it. The Gungan fighting was fine as far as that goes in the film. But the duel at the end of the film wasn’t the greatest under close examination. Don’t get me wrong, Darth Maul is amazing and I was upset that they killed him. He should have been more dominant in the trilogy, I thought. He would have done amazing in the Clone Wars. But, alas, it was not to have been. But what I do mean is that Obi-Wan Kenobi has a bad case of the twirlies and he had many times to kill Maul before the end. And the second episode has a great battle and a fun duel between Yoda and Dooku, but there were two problems with that: we didn’t see much of the ground troops fighting and I would have loved to see that and with the duel, Dooku seems surprised that Yoda can deflect a few oversized bricks with the Force. Yoda is powerful, Dooku. A rock the size of him won’t stop him. And then it is third one that the fighting gets off. And not the battles, the space battle over Coruscant and the many other battles are fun, but it is the duels between the Emperor and Yoda and the Emperor and Windu. Ian McDiarmid can’t fight worth a darn but he actually does his own lightsaber duels and that is why they fail. These are the duels between the three greatest masters in the universe, it should be more epic than Obi-Wan and Anakin, but it wasn’t. I was upset that these were so short and so clunky. And we don’t need to see Palpatine cackle like that witch or make weird, outlandish faces every two seconds. It isn’t intimidating at all, it is painful to watch. And Ian can’t even hold his lightsaber correctly. Bad move, Lucas.

Costumes and Design: This is probably the most steadily successful department in all six Star Wars films. A small aspect in these films, but one that I thought should be noted. Though it was grand and flamboyant and very obvious in many moments, it had a point and it did well. The design of the props was great and what live sets (and not green screen/computer sets) were well thought out and matched the cultures well.

Special Effects: The CGI in all six are good (except for the Digitally Remastered Special Edition for Episode IV). It may have been used too much in the Episode II and III, but it did well with the terrible directing of Lucas. The space battles looked real and the many different planets looked as real as they could be, most definitely Mustafar and Coruscant. I didn’t find it too overbearing. It’s like Avatar, it had a point. But I do agree that Lucas wrote the script to emphasize the computer graphics. Though I am opposed to that, it was not the downfall of the film; it was the script as a spoken language.

Additional Notes: There is still plenty of other things that I could say about these three films. Anakin’s pod should have crashed immediately after his engine popped out of its socket. George Lucas couldn’t have found a better way to kill Padmé? She lost the will to live? If you can die just by willing yourself to, there out to be a lot more suicides in that universe. When the Emperor is fighting the four Jedi Masters, he kills some of these great fighters in less than fice seconds. No, that is not possible, especially if you are as bad a swordsman as Palpatine. Why wouldn’t Anakin have killed the Emperor right then and there when he learned he lied to him? Palpatine said that Darth Plagieus taught his apprentice the knowledge (Palpatine) of saving people from dying and then he says he didn’t. That was the whole point he turned was for that knowledge that he had, but then he says he doesn’t have it. I would have killed him. And we see the designs for the Death Star but don’t understand how that applies to the Separatists. So many plot holes and questions are raised and are never answered. For any movie, these many holes would have garnered so much hatred, but because it is Star Wars, people look past it. I’m sorry, I can’t. 1 STAR LUCAS!

Saturday, March 5, 2011

The Adjustment Bureau; 4 stars

You can’t go wrong with Matt Damon. Matt Damon is one of the great actors of our time. I haven’t seen a bad performance of his and I truly stand by the point that this movie is no exception. The movie may have some flaws (this is a first time directing gig, so I can allow it; look at David Fincher’s first film and then his other works and you may understand), but at the heart of this movie is a moving screenplay and a fantastic cast.


First, the screenplay has some great moments. It introduces us to this world, but never does it show us too much. It opens up this universe and we do not need the answers to these questions. The movie is never trying to force its rules on us by long expositions. The story comes naturally and we are left with the characters and are focused on them.

That being said, it is the characters that drive the movie along to its ending, not the exposition or the scenery. And this is a combination of both the acting and the written words. Emily Blunt and Matt Damon have great chemistry. It may seem a little weird for two couples to be so intense with each other, but I think some exposition later on kind of resolves that issue. But all of these characters play their roles perfectly. We love them and we want to be with them, and if a director can engage his or her viewers this well, he’s doing something right.

The major problem is the spiritual aspect of the film. The ideology of the movie is not in keeping with the Christian beliefs at all, but that has nothing to do with the filmmaking, simply my own views and opinions. Simply put, the film tries to answer a few questions dealing with free will and a predetermined path. Though they are interesting simply as a theological standpoint, it is not withstanding in Christian views. I don’t want to give much spoilers so I won’t even try saying anything more; I have been trying really hard not to in my reviews recently.

But I highly recommend this film. Not much action, but a great thriller with a good story and powerful actors. “Kneel before Zod, Bourne!”