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The James Cameron film


Very simple: The hype is real. Go see it. See it in 3-D. This film is visually amazing, and for once don't listen to the critics (like myself) who want a plot or story or dialogue in their film.

WE ARE WRONG!!! For this film, all us critics who have highbrow expectations such as what I just mentioned should put all that aside for what a MOTION PICTURE is meant to be: visually stunning!

And this film is. wow!

And you will hear even conservatives bemoan the point of this film, which is "humanity bad. destroy own world with global warming. now destroy other civilization," but the conservatives will tell you that it's good "anyway" - meaning they refuse to get the point,

which is, humans ARE bad, We ARE destroying the world. This movie isn't just an homage to how whitey killed off the American Indian (sorry, "Pre-Columbian North American") - this is happening NOW - just look at Brazil!

Those who refuse to see are themselves blind, and refuse to get the point of the movie.

I say, put on those 3-D glasses, let this movie amaze you. And then, let it enrage you so that you will actually do something!


But most of all, just go have fun!

VG

Charlie Brown Christmas

Rented it from the library to show the kids. They were slightly bored at first, but that's because they're used to explosions and fairy odd-parents crashing out of their TV screen every five seconds, so something like a real story line doesn't come easily to them.

But, about halfway through they started getting into it. The cusp of the teenage girl of course got into the part where all the girls were calling CB a "stupid blockhead" but that's because she's on the cusp of being a teenage girl.

But, man, when Linus kills the lights and stands in the spotlight to quote from the Book of Luke, WOW! I sTILL get the lump in my throat.

Good job, Mr. Schultz, and God bless you!


Seriously, once I considered compiling a Christmas Reader with all the "must-have" Christmas stories, and then I realized if I ever did, I'd need to make it a multimedia event, or at least just have it include this DVD.


Now that I think of it - I'd have to have it include "A Christmas Story" as well.

I need to show that to the kids . . . see what they think of it.


I'll be back . . .


VG

New Moon

Saw it yesterday with the family.

We were disappointed.

Too much hype - too little delivery.

Personally, I thought it pretty much mirrored the book, and even improved upon it. The book was maudlin and dull, and at least the movie tried to speed up the dullness, but really, with such material there was not much more they could do unless they totally tore up the plot and rewrote the actual story, which probably should have happened, but that would have destroyed their base.

Sounds like politicians . . . unable to do anything new for fear of alienating their core supporters, who expect something, however dull.

The exciting things in the movie mirrored the exciting parts of the book - the wolves and the Volturi. the only problem was that, out of 120 minutes, only about 20 minutes were on either of those, the other hundred sixty-second slices of boredom were of Bella Swan moaning and bemoaning her lost love - with rather cheesy ghost images of Edward giving her great advice, which she refused to heed.

The rest of the movie was bare-chested young men which were really nothing but eyecandy for my teenage daughter. And my wife. Makes a man just dang uncomfortable, lemmetellya!

But my wife had a point when she said that the same director who did the first movie should have done this one as well. The wife feels that the movie had a better feel, a better vibe, something that clued into the gothic romance of the first, whereas this one just "felt" like a movie that was trying to translate a book to the screen.

Maybe that's it - maybe it came across as too self-conscious, too forced.


Hm. What do you think?



VG

Better Off Dead

John Cusack.

I had to see this movie - I loved it when it came out in the 80's and I love it now. (Wait a minute - I just wrote that in my blog post for Cinema Paradiso . . . oh well, it's true for both)

While the clothing does appear dated (definitely 80's) but the themes are not - teenage years, obsessive crush on girl, school bully, terrifying newspaper boy.

In fact, there is no such thing as a paper boy any more. That's a rather sad commentary on our culture. Regardless, though, perhaps this movie could be seen as a period piece, of the intrisically bizarre alternative universe of the ReaganEighties . . .

whatever - it's funny. It's funny in a deadpan funny. It's John Cusack funny. It's littered with oddball characters who simply enhance the hapless anti-hero, who can't seem to kill himself in any halfway decent fashion . . . even his parents and his little brother (who is a supergenius who never speaks) augment the insanity of his world. In fact, what makes it so funny is that he IS the only sane one in this world, and he's trying to kill himself OUT of it.

And what I have to tell everybody about the premise an the title is that it is nowhere near as morbid as any explanation would make it seem to be. It IS indeed a movie that you really should watch.

Even if just for the tentacle trying to climb its way out of his mom's cooking pot.

Just remember the tag line "TWOOOOO DOLLLLARS!!!"

Once you see this movie, that will become two of the most terrifying words you'll ever hear!

VG

Cloverfield

Loved it like I loved Blair Witch Project, precisely because of the way the story was told. Story unfold through a handheld video camera that starts off with somebody taping his friends' going away party, and the perspective changes when Manhattan starts being taken apart, piece by piece.

Interestingly enough, this method of storytelling does allow some leeway into some minor diversions in the movie, such as in the subway tunnel, when our "heroes" (for lack of a better term) come face to face with miniature monsters, who, if they don't tear you to shreds right away, inject you with a poison that makes you explode about twenty minutes later (which reduces our heroes from four to three).

In a regularly told movie, they would have to account for that . . . answer the questions, how did the little monsters get here? Are they offspring of the big monster that ripped of Lady Liberty's head and sent it flying through the streets of Greenwich Village? (Were they in the Village? I can't remember . . . not being much of a New Yorker, I can't differentiate all the neighbourhoods)

Regardless, this type of handheld camera is both effective and allows the makers the leeway simply to show the action without having to clarify with a lot of rationalizations.

Makes it very effective. Truth be told, if this were told in a standard format, it would have been just another monster movie.

I mentioned Blair Witch before, and this movie also begs another comparison, to a monster movie that is spectacular on all fronts . . . The Host. (Korean movie, I've blogged it before - check it out . . . I'm sure the makers of this movie studied that one in and out.)

VG

Cinema Paradiso

Finally showed it to my wife, this movie was beautiful when I first saw it in '89 and it still makes me cry twenty years later! What an absolutely beautiful, touching, tender, movie. Lord, the Europeans make coming-of-age movies better than any other continent.

My wife, however, fell asleep halfway through.

Maybe there weren't enough car chases and action heroes!

(heh heh heh!)

VG

30 Days of Night

Josh Hartnett, Melissa George

2007 Columbia Pictures


And there's a big OH YEAH DAT'S WHAT WE'RE TALKIN' ABOUT!

Yes, the ladies of the Gherulous household (wife, daughters, granddaughters) are all a-ga-ga over the "vegan" vampires of the Twilight fame "Oh Edward, he's SOOOOO HOT!!"

Now, I plug in this bad boy, and the men of the house say, "Now THIS is what vampires are like - vicious, cruel, malicious, mean, nasty, ugly, verminous, hateful . . ..

and THIS is how we deal with them - with guns, with axes to chop off their nasty heads (and yes, that includes the little bloodsucking 8 year old girl vampires too!) and HUGE ICE CHOPPING machinery to cut them in half!

Boo-YAH!

Sorry to all the 'tween girls (both in age and in spirit) out there who want to believe that vampires can be "sweet" if they just fall in love with the right human girl, but this movie tells it like it is . . . these vamps are hungry eating machines: there is nothing attractive or sexy about them, and there is only one possible future for them - total corporeal disintegration!

Oh, yeah, and by the way - the movie's gory as all get out. Bring a vomit bag.

Plot and acting take a back seat to the action, but then, I care not, because I believe I've made the main point very clear. Vampires are bad and should be eradicated!!!


VG

Death at a Funeral

Yup - British "stiff upper lip" comedies are hilarious. They really are. Nobody can laugh at themselves like the Brits can. We Americans have not been humbled enough yet to laugh at our own foolishness (with the exception of redneck humour - but there you have it! humiliation breeds self-deprecating humour, because the point is "We may as well joke about ourselves before others do!")

The plot is basically simple: Dad dies, funeral for him, his gay dwarf lover tries to embezzle hush money out of the family - several people unknowingly injest mind-altering drugs, add a dash of cantankerous old man and enormous hilarity ensues.

This would also make a great play. It actually feels like a play in some aspects. It would probably actually do very well on the stage - the intimate setting of the theatre would really drive home some of the poignant, salient points.

But, truly, you could do much worse with an hour and a half. Give this one a watch, definitely.

and remember, if you ever see a bottle of Valium lying in a bush beside the shed where a funeral service is taking place in an English country home, don't sneak any of the pills - you don't know WHAT's really in 'em!

VG

Death Sentence (2007)

Kevin Bacon

This movie frankly, was silly from beginning to end.

Basic premise - Insurance Executive VP has favored son killed in random gang initiation killing, and eventually becomes as mercilessly cruel as the gangsters themselves.

Only this doesn't really seem to be a movie about this type of violence - from beginning to end it's just the director's fanciful version about this type of violence - something so distanced and pallid that it's almost comical.

The meth-making, MikeTysontattoo-wearing, cleancut whiteboys simply don't make convincing "street thugs" - they look like what they are: rich white kids trying to act like whitesupremist street thugs. It's ludicrous.

The plot - twisted, vampy, weak.

The only GOOD scene, frankly, was him fighting one of the punks while the car slowly rolls backward toward the precipice of the top floor of the parking garage. And if that silly scene can be considered the highlight of the film, you can see how saccharine the rest of the movie is!

You really can miss this one. Wish I had.

Sorry, Kevin . . . I've liked you in everything else.

VG