Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)

It's funny how you can change your mind about some things.  I apparently liked this movie but I didn't feel that way when I saw a copy on the server.  I watched it again and all the things I originally pointed out as terrible didn't bother me but new things did.  Below, I talked about the shaky cam but I can't say I experienced any on my TV.  Maybe that's just the discrepancy of screen sizes or maybe I've grown used to the effect.  I also said that I didn't buy Jake Gyllenhaal as an action hero.  I still have some issues with that but his chemistry with Gemma Aterton saves his performance.  I think my original review was somewhat harsh but I stand by the overall sentiment:  this is a popcorn flick, suitable only for times when you need to turn your brain off for a couple of hours.  Originally posted 29 May 10.   More Disney! No nightmares here, though. As a matter of fact, while you watch your mind takes a little vacation!

Maybe that's a little harsh. The movie isn't entirely brainless. It's just that it doesn't expect very much from itself. It's like it knows that it doesn't have to be great to be a good video game movie. The bar's not set that high.

I never played the video game so I couldn't tell you if it followed the plot at all. I'm guessing yes. Parts of the movie, especially the flashbacks, feel very much like cut-scenes. The music reminded me a great deal of The Mummy and the chase scene through the marketplace is very live-action Aladdin. The plot is super-predictable (I'm going to go ahead and say **SPOILER WARNING** for people to whom it is not) the second you see Ben Kingsley in guyliner. Come on! Brother to the king with a title like Chief Advisor? He might as well be wearing a sign that says "I have dreams of global domination". **END SPOILER**

Prince Dastan is played by Jake Gyllenhaal. I guess he's okay. I just don't buy him as an action hero. And not just because of Brokeback Mountain. I think it's the big puppy-dog eyes. They just don't say raised-in-a-slum to me. Maybe it's the fact that he seems genuinely upset to have to kill people. Has no problem killing snakes, though. I want my heroes to be slightly more stalwart. Ah, who am I kidding? I like 'em just this shy of psychopathic killing machines, but that's just me.

The movie is beautifully shot, the costumes and sets are lavish, and Alfred Molina adds like 10 IQ points automatically, but the action scenes left me just a tad bit annoyed. There was more of the in-too-close, Greengrass-style shakycam that's supposed to stand in for realism but there was also way too much use of sudden slow motion. I think that, like 3D, slo-mo is great in small doses. You can really amp up a cool move by showing it happening veeeerrrrry slooooowly. But the fight scene outside the little mountain village looked like it was edited by a 4-year-old with a pause button.

To recap, Prince of Persia is a fun, summery, popcorn-flick that won't make you any smarter but won't actively insult your intelligence either. And it's PG-13 so there's very little blood and no cursing.

Inspector Gadget 2 (2003)

  This was a straight-up terrible movie.  Granted, I never saw the first one but this was just horribly lazy, even for a sequel.

Inspector Gadget (French Stewart) finds himself replaced by a newer model, G2 (Elaine Hendrix), during a lull in crime.  But when evil "genius" Dr. Claw (Tony Martin) escapes from prison, Gadget is determined to put him away again, whether he is wanted or not.

I put genius in quotes because the villain of this film is just as stupid as the hero.  Really, the whole thing suffers from the most obvious sight gags, cringe-inducing puns, and forced cheeriness.  I felt bad for everyone involved in this project.  It's not their fault.  They have to pay bills and put food on the table just like the rest of us.  I blame Disney for green lighting this with the worst script they could possibly have chosen.  I understand the direct-to-video market is a twisted wasteland of cast-off ideas that couldn't get real funding for marketing but you are only perpetuating the cycle by releasing crapfests like this one.

The Fisher King (1991)

  This movie kicked the shit out of me.  By turns funny and heart-wrenching, this is Terry Gilliam's most polished work.  I loved Brazil and Time Bandits scared the fuck out of me as a child, but I respect this film.

Jack Lucas (Jeff Bridges) is a successful shock jock for a New York radio station with a very upwardly mobile career until a disturbed fan takes one of his off-handed remarks literally and shoots up a restaurant.  Wracked with guilt, Lucas becomes a shell of himself and ends up working in his girlfriend's (Mercedes Ruehl) video store.  He finally works up the nerve to try and drown himself in the East River when he is attacked by a couple of hooligans and saved by a ragtag group of homeless, led by Perry (Robin Williams), a modern-day knight errant on a search for the Holy Grail, which he believes is in a billionaire's study.  Lucas does some digging and finds that Perry wasn't always crazy; he had a nervous breakdown after his beloved wife was killed in the selfsame restaurant shooting.  Feeling responsible, Lucas decides to help Perry turn his life around but finds the experience beneficial to himself as well.

The myth of the Fisher King is beautifully referenced here as a metaphor for selflessness and faith.  Robin Williams is beyond words.  He was nominated for Best Actor at the 1992 Oscars for this role but had the bad fortune to be going against Anthony Hopkins for The Silence of the Lambs.  That's a tough break.  Criterion has added The Fisher King to their collection and I urge you to do the same.  I know I will.

Insomnia (2002)

  Normally I hate American remakes of foreign films.  Most of them are pointless and a few are so dumbed down as to be unwatchable.  This one was really decent, however.  I don't know if that's because I didn't know it was a remake until it was over or because it's Christopher Nolan's work.  Either way this is a solid film.

Detective Will Dormer (Al Pacino) and his partner (Martin Donovan) are on loan from LA to a town in Alaska in order to solve a murder and also to get away from the increasing scrutiny of Internal Affairs.  A young woman has been killed and Will is certain that the killer will strike again.  He comes close to catching the man but accidentally shoots his partner in the fog.  Afraid of drawing more heat on himself, he conceals the evidence and the death is blamed on the murderer.  But local cop Ellie (Hilary Swank) notices that the evidence doesn't line up with his testimony.  Will also starts receiving taunting phone calls from the killer and finds himself completely unable to sleep through the "white nights" of the extreme North, where the sun doesn't set for months.

It's a very well done film and one of Robin Williams' few completely dramatic roles.  I have to admit, it was a little bittersweet to see him in something even now, two years after his death.  He was so immensely talented.

I can't dwell on that or I'll get all depressed.  This does make me want to look for the original, which is from 1997 and stars Stellan Skarsgard.

High and Low (1963)

  This was a really interesting film and not just because it's a Kurosawa set in modern times.

A shoe company executive (Toshiro Mifune) has a line on a deal that will see him raised to chief shareholder of the company and he's mortgaged every single dime to make it happen.  All the money he has in the world is in one check to serve as the principal.  Then he gets a phone call saying that his son has been kidnapped.  After some confusion, his household realizes that it was actually the chauffeur's son that was taken.  Paying a ransom to get your own kid back is one thing but how far would you go to save an employee's child if it meant destroying everything you had built?

I can appreciate a good moral quandary.  There's a lot of tension to be mined from that.  My problem is that once the decision has been reached, the movie isn't as interesting, so while I did enjoy seeing it I won't be buying this one for my collection.  That's probably a good thing since I'm desperately short on shelf space as it is.

Inside Man (2006)

I'm back!  Monday was my travel day and after 16.5 hours in the car I was exhausted.  But I did not forget you, my people of the digital shadows, and I am here today to give you the post you missed from yesterday.    Frankly, I thought I had already reviewed this but I had not.  I hate when that happens because it leaves me feeling like I don't have anything to say about this movie.  Which is stupid because I have something to say about damn near everything.

Detective Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington) is called out to negotiate with a bank robber (Clive Owen) holding hostages.  Meanwhile, a high-priced fixer (Jodie Foster) has been hired by the bank's chairman (Christopher Plummer) to negotiate the retrieval of very sensitive items that were in a safety deposit box.  Frazier has to navigate these shark-filled waters to get to the truth.

This is a very good heist movie, especially the first time.  A lot of mysteries don't work once you know the trick so for a movie like this to be watchable multiple times, it needs to have something extra.  There is a very sharp script handled by a wealth of impeccable actors.  It's really a worthwhile watch.

Primer (2004)

  I'm not going to pretend I knew all of what was happening in this film.  I may or may not have looked up a diagram of events just to get a better idea.  Time travel is confusing.

A pair of engineers are working on side projects in a garage, trying to come up with the Next Best Thing.  While working on something completely unrelated, they accidentally invent a functional time machine.  It is limited to the past and only about 22 hours at that, but the possibilities are endless.  Abe (David Sullivan) decides to secretly build a person-sized version.  When he tells Aaron (Shane Carruth), the two men struggle to reconcile their fears and ambitions.

This feels like probably the most realistic version of the creation of a time machine:  two people who are smarter than is good for them dicking around and changing the world completely by accident.  That part I get.  The director, Shane Carruth, deliberately chose to keep the very high-level technical jargon intact instead of dumbing it down for us Morlocks.  A stylistic choice that I don't necessarily agree with, but I respect it.  Critics heaped praise on this movie, which I can kind of see but it makes me wonder if all the rave reviews were due to people feeling so smart when they finally figured out what was happening.  Maybe that makes me dumb.  I don't know.  Time manipulation isn't really my area.  It didn't help me that the whole film looks like it was shot on a camcorder.  It is ultra-low budget, which people keep saying like it's a good thing.  I get that it adds to the realism.  I just don't think it's necessary.

I found the movie fascinating but I struggled with the execution.  If you're hard-core into causality and time travel and paradox theory, you might enjoy this more than I did.  I would caution other lightweights like me, though.  This is not the film for dabblers.

Indiana Jones: Making the Trilogy

This isn't a feature film, just a trio of featurettes from the bonus disc in my Indiana Jones box set.  I'm not usually interested in the mechanics behind my movies.  I think it steals the magic if you know how a trick is done, but every once in a while I get curious.  You can learn some very surprising things.

For example, George Lucas didn't want Harrison Ford to be his go-to actor, like Scorsese and DeNiro, so he was against casting Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark.  It wasn't until their top runner, Tom Selleck, backed out to do Magnum, P.I. that they went back to the well.  Danny DeVito was up for the role of Sallah but couldn't do it because of commitments to his television show at the time.  Take a moment and envision that movie.

Harrison Ford fears nothing.  Not snakes, not rats, not bugs.  Nothing.  He also gets hurt a lot.  He tore his ACL during Raiders and herniated his back during Temple of Doom.  They filmed the entire conveyer belt fight with Ford's stunt double, Vic Armstrong, and only had him back to do close-ups.

Kate Capshaw did not read the script for Temple of Doom.  She was therefore very surprised at the amount of bugs that would be dumped on her head.  And they were all real bugs.

The red sequined dress she wears in the opening number was half-eaten by an elephant because they filmed the jungle scenes before they filmed the musical scenes.

Sean Connery is only 12 years older than Harrison Ford and objected to the idea of playing his father at first.  Spielberg was adamant, however, because no one could be Indy's dad except for James Bond.  He eventually agreed as long as they took more pains to flesh out the character.

There was a lot more information packed into each of these featurettes, but I don't want to spoil everything for you.

Priest (2011)

Shhh!  Don't tell anyone.  I'm in New Orleans!  Christy is here for work and she invited me to come do the touristy thing so while she is slaving away, I'm going to tour cemeteries, bone up on my voodoo, and eat beignets until I sweat powdered sugar.  I didn't forget about you guys, though.  I'll be posting on my regular schedule, just not as many since I won't be seeing any movies.  And they're not all reposts like this one.  I just happened to have watched this after five years.

I really wish this had been better received.  It's got such a cool world, it seems a shame that it didn't get more love.  I would have liked there to be a follow-up, if not the full trilogy effect.  It's based on a graphic novel, however, so that might be worth picking up.  The only other thing I have to note is that my early posts were kind of crap.  I didn't even try to present them as worth reading.  Ugh.  Thank God you guys stuck with me past these annoying growing pains.  Originally posted 15 May 11.    This was better than I thought it would be.  Way better than Legion, that's for damn sure.

It is a little weird, especially what with the animated opening credits.  (Done by Genndy Tartakovsky, the guy who did Dexter's Laboratory and Samurai Jack.)  I couldn't help but make connections to Christian eschatological symbolism the whole time I was watching it.  Let me show you what I mean.

So, in this world, there was a huge war between the forces of men and vampires.  The tide is only turned with the development of supernaturally advanced warriors priests trained by the Church.  The vampires are confined to small reservations, in what I can only imagine was a misguided effort by hippie liberals.  Seriously?  In what way could that possibly end up a good thing?  But whatever.  After the war, the Priests are disbanded and forced to work menial jobs, discriminated against due to the facial tattoos they have.  One in particular, Paul Bettany, finds it hard going since he has recurring nightmares about losing his friend in the last assault.  Then his brother's farm (played by Stephen Moyer, who is the main vampire in TrueBlood) is attacked in the outlands and the local sheriff, Cam Gigandet, comes to tell him that Lucy (Lily Collins), the daughter, has been kidnapped.  So the Priest turns his back on the repressive politicized church (think V for Vendetta levels of theocracy) and sets out to rescue the girl.

This is where it gets all Revelations-y.  And maybe SPOILER-ish.  Use caution.

See, the guy behind all of this (a scenery chewing Karl Urban) is the guy that Priest couldn't save.  Surprise!  He is turned by the Vampire Queen (Whore of Babylon) and sets out to destroy the world, becoming the Antichrist.  See, because he's basically just like Priest, only in negative...and with a better hat.
Priest (the Father) and the Sheriff (the Son) are joined by the Priestess, Maggie Q, who never lost faith in the righteousness of their mission (the Holy Spirit).  Need more?  Okay.  Priest and Priestess are known only by their titles and they share superhuman abilities.  The Sheriff is named Hicks and is fully human, elevated only by his willingness to risk himself in order to save the girl.

Now all of this may be a little heavy-handed for some of you, depending on your feelings about religion.  I enjoyed it but then, I enjoy weird takes on things.  I saw it with my friend, Joe, whose only complaint was that the foley artist should have been fired.  He thought that the sound effects during the battle scenes were muted.  I didn't notice.  There are lots of explosions and slo-mo spinning kicks so I was entertained.

Summer Wars (2009)

  This movie was so beautiful it left me gobsmacked.  Too bad the rest of it is kind of dumb.

Kenji (Kamiki Ryunosuke) is a math genius suckered into pretending to be popular girl Natsuki's (Sakuraba Nanami) boyfriend at her grandmother's birthday party.  While there, Kenji solves a math problem online but discovers that this has enabled a hacker to take over the online world of Oz.  Having gained privileges from over 400 million users, the rogue AI begins tampering with infrastructure all over the world.  Kenji and his fake girlfriend's family must band together to stop it before it crashes a satellite into a nuclear facility.

Basically, if Her and Live Free or Die Hard had an animated Japanese baby movie, it would be Summer Wars.  It's certainly watchable and like I said the animation is so freaking gorgeous it makes me insane but there are some serious pacing issues.  Chief among them being a subplot that I think is supposed to be a humorous parallel about the local high school baseball team, but one I found to be completely unnecessary.  Also, a traditional game called Hanafada plays a pretty significant part.  It's not a deal breaker, but I'm sure it would have added some depth if I knew anything about the game.

I'd put the ideal viewing age for this around 13-16-years-old.  I think you'd be much more inclined to be blown away or even entertained more deeply than anyone older.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

  Okay, this isn't the best Indiana Jones movie but it's still absolutely watchable.  Comparing it to other franchises is like saying Temple of Doom is the worst diamond.  If you don't own the whole series (minus the last one because we don't speak of it in polite company) then I feel sorry for you.

Dr. Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) is in China trying to swap a priceless artifact for a giant diamond but the deal goes south and Jones ends up with a mouthy blonde lounge singer named Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw) instead.  After a spectacular plane crash, Jones, Scott, and his faithful companion Short Round (Ke Huy Quan) wind up in India.  The villagers think Jones was sent by Shiva to help them recover a missing sacred stone which had been stolen along with their children.  Jones soon discovers that darker forces are at play than just a missing rock.

Seriously, I love this movie.  The scene with the bugs still makes me shudder, as does the the whole extended dinner sequence.  Willie Scott is one of the most annoying characters to ever grace the silver screen but she's more than balanced out by Mola Ram being a total badass villain.  The "Kali Ma" heart grab is right up there with Force lightning on the list of superpowers I would murder someone for.

Yes, I have that list.  This is why I'm alone.

Pride and Prejudice (2005)

  I know, this isn't my usual fare.  But never let it be said that I refuse to see things just because of their genre.  This is how you avoid those nasty feedback loops.

Elizabeth Bennett (Keira Knightley) is the second of five daughters.  Her mother (Brenda Blethyn) spends every waking moment trying to get her girls married off to respectable men.  Elizabeth is much more ambivalent to the whole process.  However, she is happy when her sister, Jane (Rosamund Pike) shows interest in the highborn lord next door, Mr. Bingley (Simon Woods).  Elizabeth tries to be friendly with Bingley's pal, Mr. Darcy (Matthew Macfadyen), but finds him rude.    For his part, Darcy hates her whole family.  As is the way of these things, obviously they are destined to be together.

As much as I hate romances, this is one of the best adaptations I've seen.  I can only assume it's because of the incredibly impressive cast since the story is so well-worn.  The video I have is very poor quality so I couldn't appreciate the cinematography but knowing Joe Wright's later work, I'm sure it was excellent.

Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014)

  And here we come to our second Christy pick for the month.

Moses (Christian Bale) has been raised as the second son of the pharaoh (John Tuturro) but discovers that he is actually a Hebrew foundling that had been saved from the last massacre.  His brother, Rameses (Joel Edgerton), fears Moses will usurp his throne and exiles him to the desert.  Moses makes his way to a small village, marries a beautiful local woman (Maria Valverde), and settles down.  But God (Isaac Andrews) is tired of seeing His chosen people toil as slaves and sends Moses a none-too-subtle message to go and lead them out of captivity.

Here's the thing.  This is a beautifully done film, with majesty and spectacle overflowing every frame.  But I grew up watching the Charlton Heston The Ten Commandments and nothing is ever going to come close for me.  I don't care how many stars you get, how huge your VFX budget is, or how many extras you have.  Nothing will ever top Cecil B. DeMille's opus.

That being sad, this is a really beautiful movie.  Ridley Scott knows epics and he pulled out all the stops.  The only problem I saw was the pacing.  The action builds, then lulls, then builds again.  It makes it feel very uneven and robs certain scenes of their full potential.  If you don't have the same kind of reverence for The Ten Commandments that I do, this might be the film for you.

The Incredibles (2004)

  Did you ever have one of those days where you just didn't feel like doing anything?  I've been trying for hours to work up the energy to write this post. 

It's been a long time since I've sat down and watched The Incredibles.  I forgot how much I enjoyed this film.  Pixar finally announced a sequel but it doesn't come out until 2019.  That is a fifteen year gap.  I have no idea if the sequel will be worth a damn after all that time but it's Pixar, so I don't dare bet against them.

Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson) hung up his spandex a long time ago to settle into domestic life as his alter ego, Bob Parr.  But working at an insurance company just isn't fulfilling his superhero needs.  When he gets the opportunity to exercise his super-strength once more, he jumps at it, unwittingly playing right into super villain Syndrome's (Jason Lee) hands.  With Bob captured, it's up to his wife (Holly Hunter) and kids to rescue him and save the day.

This was an instant classic when it came out and it stays enjoyable no matter how many times you watch it.

Premium Rush (2012)

I wasn't really in the mood to watch something weighty or dramatic after I binge-watched the first season of Arrow on Netflix.  I needed a palate cleanser, something lighter and more upbeat.  Premium Rush was just what I was looking for.  The only problem I have is that (because it is a burned copy) there are no subtitles during what appears to be a fairly critical conversation between Jamie Chung's and Henry O's characters.  I'll probably end up trying to find a cheap copy on Amazon at some point in the future.  Originally posted 06 Jan 13.    When you hear the synopsis, this movie doesn't sound like much.

Bike messenger Wiley (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) runs afoul of crooked cop Detective Monday (Michael Shannon) and has to race around New York City to deliver a letter.

But that leaves out the Chinese gangsters, a human trafficking plot, and tons of death.  Seriously, they must have killed 100 extras. 

Nima (Jamie Chung) wants to bring her son over from China and has paid a human smuggler $50,000 to do so.  The receipt has to be in the snakehead's hand by 7 p.m. so she gives it to Wiley to courier across town.  Detective Monday needs that money to pay off his gambling debts so he chases Wiley all across the city. 

A slight effort after his turns in The Dark Knight Rises and Inception, but I'll watch JGL in just about anything.  This is a fun, fast-paced movie with a likeable cast.

In This Our Life (1942)

  I got this as part of my Bette Davis collection and while I didn't really connect with the story, I found it to be extremely open in its depiction of the racial discrimination so prevalent at the time.  For it to be mentioned, even in passing, was huge.  I don't think I've seen another movie from the 40's or 50's even allude to the rampant inequality that was endemic.

Spoiled but pretty Stanley Timberlake (Bette Davis) runs off on the eve of her wedding with her sister's husband, Peter (Dennis Morgan).  But her partying ways and frivolous spending soon cause her to have to move back home, only to find that her sister, Roy (Olivia de Havilland), is now set to marry Stanley's former fiance, Craig (George Brent).  Stanley immediately makes a play to win him back, is rebuffed, and storms off behind the wheel.  She accidentally strikes a pair of pedestrians and blames the accident on Craig's legal secretary, a black man, trusting that her word will see him go to prison for the crime.  Roy is the only person who believes in Perry's (Ernest Anderson) innocence and she sets out to convince Stanley to tell the truth.

There's also a vaguely creepy thread through the film concerning Stanley's relationship with her uncle.  It's clear that she's his favorite niece and he lavishes attention and money on her but his behavior strays uncomfortably close to inappropriate.  It's a masterful performance by Charles Coburn to make it so innocuous and yet so not.  It's not surprising that a story like this would interest director John Huston, who has never shied away from uncomfortable subjects.  It could have been just another silly melodrama meant to distract people from the war but it shows surprising depth and grit.

Predator 2 (1990)

I apologize for the lateness.  I had no Internet or cable for almost the entire day.  As you may well imagine, this was an intolerable situation.  It was like being back in the Stone Age.  Or the 90's.  Not sure which is more horrible.  Speaking of the 90's...    I skipped the original Predator because I bought it a while ago on blu-ray and I haven't gotten to the letter P yet.  I know I've seen this one before but it was at least 20 years ago and I remembered next to nothing about it.

Los Angeles is experiencing an unprecedented heat wave and a corresponding rise in violence.  Two rival gangs have turned the city into a war zone.  Police lieutenant Mike Harrigan (Danny Glover) is doing all he can to put an end to the hostilities but he is unprepared to face the true threat:  an alien sportsman treating the town as his own private game reserve.  The more Harrigan discovers, the greater danger he and his team are in.

This also has Bill Paxton, Gary Busey, and a very young Adam Baldwin (Jayne from Serenity, or Casey from Chuck, if you prefer).  It's definitely not the best in the franchise but it does provide a bit more backstory on the Predators.

The Invisible (2007)

  As you may or may not have noticed, I didn't get a Christy Experiment for March.  It completely slipped my mind.  I told her she could have two picks for April and this is the first of them.

Nick (Justin Chatwin) is an upper middle class high school student who is assaulted and left for dead by the local troublemaker, Annie (Margarita Levieva), who mistakenly believed that Nick dimed her out to the cops.  He wakes up a wandering spirit, trying desperately to find someone who can find his body before it actually dies.  By a stroke of luck, only Annie can hear him.

I will tell you all right now that I didn't get this movie at all.  Also, there may be some spoilers from here forward.  What the hell was this trying to say?  The rich kid deserved to live more than the poor kid?  The girl needed to pay for almost killing the boy by giving up her life?  That's not an equal exchange.  I found this movie to be baffling in that respect.  There's a whole romantic subplot where the nearly-dead boy is essentially stalking the girl by following her everywhere while she is breaking into his house to moon over his emo poetry.  I didn't get that either.  Most damning of all, it is absolutely boring to watch.

If somebody can tell me one coherent idea contained within this movie, I am all ears.  Otherwise, I have to think that it's teenaged claptrap masquerading as art.

The Impostors (1998)

This movie is just pure happiness for me.  I know I've been posting a lot of repeats here lately.  I'm finally getting to some of the ones I bought months or even years ago and never opened.  In this case, I don't even feel bad because I just want to put the word out about this movie.  I really cannot recommend it enough.  Originally posted 07 Sep 10.   This is such a great movie I'm surprised that more people haven't heard of it. I plan on buying it as soon as I can. Stanley Tucci wrote and directed it and it is adorably hilarious, very much in the style of 40's-era madcap comedies.

Stanley Tucci and Oliver Platt are a couple of out-of-work actors who find themselves trapped on an ocean liner after insulting Alfred Molina's performance of Hamlet. There's a deposed queen of an unnamed country, a broke recently-widowed socialite and her death-obsessed daughter, a sheik, a suicidal entertainer, a bomb-toting terrorist, a creepy German, and a couple of con artists.

The combined star power here is pretty awesome. Molina, Isabella Rossolini, Tony Shaloub, Steve Buscemi, Allison Janney, and a bunch of other people you would recognize if you saw. So what are you waiting for? Go watch it!

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

  What is with all of these depressing movies lately?  This is the worst by far.

David (Haley Joel Osment) is a robot in the shape of a small child.  He was created to be a surrogate for childless couples in the wake of global population limits.  Once David is imprinted, his software tells him to love that person unconditionally and can never be reprogramed.  Given to a couple whose biological child is in cryostasis, David imprints on Monica (Frances O'Connor) and she is happy for a while.  But when her actual child comes home, the stress of trying to care for a robot boy is too great. Instead of returning him to the company for destruction, Monica leaves him in the woods to fend for himself.  David latches on to the idea of finding the Blue Fairy from Pinocchio so he can be a real boy and win Monica's love again.  He sets off with some help from a talking teddy bear (Jack Angel) and a sexbot named Gigolo Joe (Jude Law) to the drowned island of Manhattan to find his answers.

You know how Into the Woods is known as "no one's favorite Sondheim"?  Well, I petition to make A.I. known as "no one's favorite Spielberg".  It's slow, it's creepy, and it's bleakly depressing.  The only good thing I can say about it is that the special effects are still mind-blowingly good.  Industrial Light and Magic really knows their shit.  There are some seams, especially around the bear, but most of it is pretty flawless.  That's not enough of a reason to watch this, though, not when there's literally an entire world of other movies out there.

Immortals (2011)

I'm really biased about this movie because I'm such a fan of the director's previous work.  It's just so beautiful.  I don't even mind Henry Cavill and I really don't like him as an actor.  It's probably not his fault.  He just keeps playing stupid lugs with Jesus complexes.  A lot of people didn't like this film.  That's okay if you're one of them.  Like I said, I'm willing to follow this director wherever he goes.  Originally posted 26 Nov 11.    I finally got to see this movie.  It was everything the new Clash of the Titans should have been.

I have been a fan of Tarsem since The Cell and certainly since The Fall.  Granted, those are the only two films he's directed before this one but they were both awesome.  Mirror, Mirror looks kind of awful but I'm sure it will still be beautiful because that's how Tarsem works.  His art direction is flawless.

Even here, with his most subdued palette yet, the frames are crisp and burnished looking.  It has the same basic colors as 300 but much more vivid.  300 could look a little muddy at times.  Not here.  Plus, our good friend the Bronze Bull is back for another appearance.  He gets way more screen time this go-round than in Red Riding Hood.  And much more historically accurate, as well.

Okay, so Theseus (Henry Cavill) is the lowest rung of society, a bastard born of rape.  Shunned by his village, he grows up learning the art of a warrior from an old beggar (John Hurt) who turns out to be Zeus (Luke Evans) in disguise.  Why is the King of the Gods spending a crapload of time with some poor bastard who lives in a trailer with his mom?  Because Theseus is the only one who can save the world.  (Also, because in most myths, he's the kid's uncle.)  See, the gods promised not to interfere directly in the lives of men unless the Titans were released from their prison under Tartarus.  A sybilline oracle named Phaedra (Frida Pinto) foresees that this will soon come to pass at the hands of Hyperion (Mickey Rourke), a king who has an axe to grind at the gods.  Hyperion is looking for a weapon, the Epirus bow, which can open the prison.  Now Theseus, a nobody, has to go up against the entire army with only help from a virgin oracle and a thief (Stephen Dorff, looking damn good for his age).

Is it accurate to the myths?  Not even a little bit.  Does that really matter here?  Nope.  The movie is action-packed without feeling rushed, the acting is good, the special effects are seamless, and the art direction is gorgeous.  It's not an Oscar contender but it's still a great time and definitely on my "Buy" list.

Speaking of "buy", did everyone have a good Black Friday?  I know I did.  Rob and I have been on nights for the past month so it was nice to have the shops open on our schedule for once.  I was expecting a lot more craziness but it looked like retailers finally had their shit together.  No one got trampled, there were no fights over merchandise, and the check-out lines moved at a good clip.  Almost disappointing in a way.  Anyway, I found seasons 3-6 of Supernatural for $12 a pop at Best Buy.  Merry Christmas to me!  Yes, I also bought stuff for other people.  Rob got a handful of blu-rays including Super 8.  Here's hoping you got everything you wanted.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

I found this on the server and I'm so happy because that means I don't have to buy it!  I was going to, just to complete my collection, but now I don't need to because I own a copy.  And it's a decent-quality copy, too, unlike some which I've found on there.  What can you do?  They were free.

Anyway, I was glad I watched this again because I needed to remember what I didn't like about it.  The only thing that stuck in my mind was how awesome the mermaid battle was and I knew there was more to the movie than that.  But why focus on the negative?  This could have been so much worse!  Sure, it was still a shameless grab for cash but it has cameos from Judi Dench and Keith Richards.  Movie #5, currently subtitled Dead Men Tell No Tales is currently filming and is slated for release in 2017 so if you were hoping this series had petered out, you are SOL.  Personally, Johnny Depp can swan around in eyeliner and craft store wigs until he's in his 80's for all I care.  I love Jack Sparrow.  Originally posted 22 May 11.    This isn't a terrible film for being the fourth in a series.  I was expecting it to be kind of bad just based on that criteria but it's not.  It's a little disjointed, a little frenetic, but not bad.  

Captain Jack is back and rescuing Mr. Gibbs from the hangman's noose when he discovers that someone calling themselves Jack Sparrow has been looking for a crew and a ship.  In need of transportation himself and very upset at the copyright infringement, Jack seeks out the impostor and ends up press-ganged into service on the Queen Anne's Revenge, captained by the one and only Blackbeard, who is searching for the Fountain of Youth.

Meanwhile, Mr. Gibbs is forced into leading Captain Barbossa, now a privateer in the King's Navy and missing a leg, to the selfsame place.  Ostensibly, they are there to thwart the Spanish for the glory of England, but things are very rarely straightforward with pirates.

I have to say that this installment was much darker in tone overall than the previous three.  The characters have grown a lot more callous with regards to human life and less this-is-based-on-a-theme-park-ride-for-kids.  The mermaid battle is one example.  Even though we're supposed to be more sympathetic towards Barbossa after all we've been through together, it's hard to see his actions (I'm not going to spoil it) as anything other than those of a stone-cold calculating bastard.  

By comparison, Ian McShane's Blackbeard is kind of lackluster.  He's doesn't vary his performance enough to show real menace.  I don't want to say he phoned it in, but "ring, ring, hooker, ring, ring".  Ditto for the Spanish villain.  I didn't even catch his name.  He could have been as creepy as Tom Hollander was in At World's End as the East India Trading Company guy but he's not on screen long enough.

I thought the mermaids were a great addition but I wish Astrid Berges-Frisby had been able to emote a little more.  It was like The Little Mermaid had been Botoxed.  Hopefully, she'll have a bigger part in movie #5.  I also hope they'll fix Sam Clafin's teeth.

Blackbeard doesn't have a monopoly on being a bad person.  I'm just sayin'.

Also, stick around after the credits for a teaser clip.  It's only about half a second long but intriguing.

Undefeated (2011)

  This wasn't as depressing or infuriating as I thought it would be. You may have surmised by now, gentle readers, that your beloved movie goddess is not what you would call a "sports" person.  I must admit, the concept of "team" has always eluded me.  I understand intellectually, of course, but I never felt cohesion and team spirit in my entire life.

Bill Courtney is a volunteer coach for the Manassas High School in East Memphis, Tennessee.  It is an inner city school with no budget for athletics and all the inherent dilemmas of at-risk students.  These kids are halfway fallen through the cracks of society, which are more like a yawning abyss of endless poverty and lost opportunities.  Over six years, Courtney has brought the pitiful football team up to competitive levels by believing in these boys and showing them they can believe in themselves.

I have serious issues with the influence of professional sports.  I think they're pointless parades of vanity and greed that perpetuate violent mentalities on and off the various fields because they are ultimately all about money.  Players are excused all sorts of excesses because they are commercially viable.  They are commodities.  And the moment they have exceeded their usefulness, they are cast aside.

However.

I also understand that only a select few athletes have the ability to participate at these upper levels and competition is extremely fierce.  For some kids, this is their only opportunity to get out of the life they had and move to something better.  I'm not going to hate on anyone for that.

This got really off-topic and I apologize.

If you liked The Blind Side and wanted to see a similar documentary, this is on Netflix streaming.

The Imitation Game (2014)

I wasn't sure I'd be in the mood to watch this again since I've seen it fairly recently.  I also wasn't sure how it would hold up to a second viewing.  Turns out, Alan Turing's life was still tragic and filled with unnecessary persecution.  Much sad.  Many feels.  Of course I bought it.  Originally posted 31 Jan 15.  Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, and Best Production Design    This was far more entertaining than any of the previous Oscar nominees I've seen this year.  I was actually a bit surprised at how much I enjoyed it, seeing as I'm not a huge Cumberbatch fan.  I know that's not going to win me any Internet friends, but I just don't see the appeal.  I think he's serviceable as an actor, but I wouldn't call him outstanding.  As far as I'm concerned, that race is down to Steve Carrell, Michael Keaton, and Eddie Redmayne.

Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) essentially recruits himself to work at Britain's top secret Bletchley Park facility.  He joins a team of top-ranked mathematicians working on cracking the German enigma machine, but soon runs into serious problems due to his extreme social awkwardness.  Fortunately, he meets Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley), a budding mathematician shut out by a male-dominated field, who teaches him to utilize more human interaction in the interests of accomplishing his goal:  the creating of a "thinking machine".  The stresses of war and the crippling British losses wear down on the entire team, even more so when it is revealed that one of them may be a Soviet spy.  Suspicion naturally falls on Turing, who is harboring a secret just not one about espionage.  He is gay in a country that prosecutes homosexuality.

Alan Turing's tragically short life was so rife with drama that I'm amazed it took this long to get a movie made about him.  He was a genius without whom we would not have this magical device I'm typing on now, who was vilified by his government and thrust into obscurity.  The film covers his boarding school years through to his post-war teaching position.  The script is good, the performances are excellent, and the production design is beautiful.  I don't know about its chances at the actual awards ceremony, since it looks like it's coming down to Boyhood and Birdman, but I'll probably end up owning it.

Philomena (2013)

  Double feature this with Spotlight and you'll really hate the Catholic Church.  Priests molest kids and nuns sell them to the highest bidder.

As a young woman, Philomena Lee (Judi Dench) was forced to give up the baby she had out of wedlock.  Fifty years later, she has never given up hope of finding him.  An out of work journalist named Martin (Steve Coogan) hears about her story and agrees to write a human interest piece where he helps her search for her missing child.  The journey takes them from a restrictive nunnery in Ireland all the way to Washington, D.C.

It would have been uplifting if it weren't so horribly depressing.  And it's not funny.  I don't know what kind of crack those reviewers were smoking.  Judi Dench is wonderful, of course, but I have never liked Steve Coogan in any role I have seen.  He always seems to play a pompous asshole, so maybe I just don't like the typecasting.

I can't in good conscience recommend this movie.  If your tastes are anything like mine, you will hate it.  And if your tastes are nothing like mine, you're probably not reading this blog.

The Illusionist (2006)

  This is not the French animated film of the same name.  You probably didn't think it was but I have to specify, because I did review that one.  This came out the same year as The Prestige and got its ass handed to it.  A sentimental little love story just could not compete with a juggernaut featuring Batman and Wolverine fighting for magical supremacy.  But that doesn't mean The Illusionist deserves to be ignored.  It's a vastly different movie from The Prestige and should be treated accordingly.

Eisenheim the Illusionist (Edward Norton) is performing in Vienna, the seat of power for the Hapsburgs.  His illusions are amazing and soon draw the eye of Leopold, the Crown Prince of the Holy Roman Empire (Rufus Sewell).  Eisenheim only has eyes for the beautiful Sophie, Duchess von Teschen (Jessica Biel), whom he knew from their childhood.  Sophie is betrothed to the Prince but longs to escape with the charming magician.  The local Chief Inspector (Paul Giamatti) is warned to keep a very close eye on the pair.  Tragedy strikes and the Inspector finds his loyalties at war with his own conscience.

I enjoyed this more the second time I watched it, which was years ago.  I bought it at that time but only opened it this past week.  And I enjoyed it even more this time.  It just seems to be one of those films that grows on you.  Keep a sharp eye out for young Eisenheim, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson before he grew up into Quicksilver.

The Phantom (1996)

  God, this movie is so campy!  He's wearing purple spandex, for fuck's sake.

Kit Walker (Billy Zane) has inherited the mantle of The Phantom, protector of the jungle nation of Bengalla, from his father and spends his days foiling evil and stopping incursions from shadowy pirate organization the Sang Brotherhood.  But a new evil is stirring far away in New York City.  Xander Drax (Treat Williams) is putting his millions into searching for three mystic skulls that will grant their bearer unlimited power.  Only plucky Diana Palmer (Kristy Swanson), Kit's college sweetheart, has the guts to stand up to Drax.  She crosses paths with The Phantom and off they go.

This is the perfect antidote to all the dark, depressing superhero movies of recent years.  Again I say, purple spandex.  The Phantom is candy-coated bubblegum meant to evoke the early radio serial days.  Plus, it has a Catherine Zeta-Jones as the female villain.  How can you not love that?  If I remember correctly, this was a box office failure but that just means it's ripe for a resurgence.  

Headhunters (2011)

  I was really looking forward to watching this but I have to say I was kind of disappointed.  Which only goes to show that you should be open but not expectant of experiences.

Roger (Aksel Hennie) is a successful headhunter for a private firm but the real money for his lavish lifestyle comes from art theft.  When his wife (Synnove Macody Lund) introduces him to a smug recently-retired executive named Clas Greve (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), Roger sees a golden opportunity to take the rich bastard down a peg or two.  Clas is no ordinary mark, however, and soon the stakes are life and death.

It's a decently suspenseful film and it's always nice to see good contemporary foreign cinema.  I just found myself wishing it were funnier or more clever or darker.  Something to give it just that little extra oomph to boost it out of the middle of the pack.  It wasn't there for me.  Maybe it'll be there for you.

Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006)

  This was another one from the Bowen's largesse.  I have all four of them on my server but I've only reviewed Continental Drift.  It seemed like as good a time as any to re-watch this on DVD, since it was there and all.

The Ice Age is coming to an end and the animals are forced to relocate to the other end of the valley to avoid the influx of water.  Manny the mammoth (Ray Romano) is worried that he may be the last of his kind but soon meets Ellie (Queen Latifah), a female mammoth.  The only problem --other than their incipient demise by flood-- is that Ellie believes that she is a possum because she was raised by a family of them.  Meanwhile, Diego (Denis Leary) must confront his fear of water and Sid (John Leguizamo) tries not to die of his own stupidity.

As sequels go, this isn't terrible.  It certainly didn't sink the franchise.  There's no denying that it lacks some of the wonder of the other films but it's honestly been so long since I've seen the first one I couldn't tell you what made it seem so special.  I remember the third one because it was hilarious and the fourth one because I've seen it most recently but it's been ages (no pun intended) since I watched the original.