Jan 05 2009
Week End Movie Roundup
Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Rating: Worthy
Leave it to Francis Ford Coppola to bring an old cinema style to the story of Dracula. This is Gothic romance at its finest. It feels almost as if this were made in another era apart from certain actors like Anthony Hopkins and Keanu Reeves. I don’t want to beat a dead horse here but I just could not help but laugh at Keanu’s British accent. On the opposite side of the spectrum, you have Gary Oldman who gets completely lost in his character and it’s remarkable to see.
There isn’t a frame of CGI in the picture and knowing this fact beforehand made the effects all the more impressive. It also made me realize how much I take for granted because CGI these days is so simple. Coppola took the time to actually figure out how to make some of these things work and the effect is truly breathtaking. There are so many surreal images that you’d imediately think that it was done using CG trickery when in fact, it was all done in camera, on film. This, coupled with its grandiose vision and Gothic style make this a worthy film.
Frank Miller is a great visual artist. He paints pretty pictures and makes good artwork. Frank Miller is not a good director. At all! The Spirit has a lot of visual dazzlement and pizazz but it is a terrible, terrible movie. The actors in this movie are awful. They are either cardboard or (in Sam Jackson’s case) devour the scene. Frank Miller also has no sense of comedic timing or even any idea of how to actually tell a joke. There were moments where I knew I should have been laughing but every attempted joke just fell flat. All of the goon clones (I forget what they’re called in the movie) are incredibly annoying from the first moment they appear onscreen. The plot makes no sense so I won’t even bother repeating it here.
I’m really surprised this movie got away with a PG-13 rating. The opening of the movie has two characters brutally beating the crap out of each other for about 5 minutes, a character’s hand gets blown off, people are decapitated, a character commits seppuku and people are shot multiple times. I suppose this is because everything is rather cartoony but I still found it to be rather grusome at times.
Slumdog Millionaire
Rating: Worthy
Who would have thought that a movie that starts with torture could be such a feel good crowd pleaser? What amazes me most about Danny Boyle is that you can’t pin him down to a specific genre or type of movie and each one is a great film. Boyle is not one to settle for what sells or to be hemmed in by a reputation for certain kinds of films.
The structure of the movie is unique and adds so much to the story. The movie is practically bursting with life even in the slums and the story is a thing of beauty. I can find no fault in this movie. It hits every note perfectly and the emotions are all earned. I don’t know how they did it but the kid actors they found were truly phenomenal. At the end of this, I was grinning like an idiot and wanted to see it again as soon as it was over. This has been a good year for true love first with WALL-E and now Slumdog Millionaire.
Let The Right One In
Rating: Worthy
This is the second vampire movie I saw this week and both treat their subject vastly different. While sharing some of the same plot elements of the recently popular film and book series Twilight, the two films could not be more different. This is a quiet and calculating horror film the likes of which have not been seen since Kubrick’s The Shining. The horror elements do not often come into play but when they do, it’s terrifying. Here is a movie that treats their vampires without a shred of camp or Gothic romance. In this way, it’s one of the most “realistic” portrayls of vampires ever brought to screen. They do not become hideous beasts or have retractable fangs. They are so realistically portrayed that you’d almost think they might actually be living among us. Again, the child actors in this project a deepness and sense of wisdom that you don’t often get to experience in actors this young.
Disaster Movie
Rating: The Most Unworthy
That’s it! There is nothing and I mean absolutely nothing that can top this movie in pure, ultimate suck. Did I just call this turd a movie? That’s my bad. Do not let the title fool you! This is not a movie! This is not even parody! This is literally a string of unconnected and completely disjointed references to other movies. The “jokes” were so non-contextual that I started to keep a tally of just how many times references were pulled out of absolutely nowhere. I counted at least 50 instances. There are literally at least 50 instances where a character or “celebrity” will appear without any reason for it at all! Not only that, but when a character or celebrity does appear, another person will literally point and say, “It’s Jessica Simpson!” or “It’s Amy Winehouse!” or “Hey look, it’s Batman!”. I counted at least a dozen times where this happens. I also started counting instances where the main characters stand and stare as a joke happens. I made it to a dozen and just couldn’t bring myself to care after that.
The two female characters you see in the picture above are the two most annoying people in the history of the entire known and unknown world. I prayed to God at so many points that he would just reach through the TV and strike them down. 30 minutes through and I was near suicidal. It was only my trusty notepad that saved me from smothering myself with my own pillow. You will notice I was forced to create a whole new rating category for this atrocity. It is near indescribable just how bad this movie is. (Crap! I referred to it as a movie again) This is as best as I can describe it: This is what Satan plays on repeat in the lowest circle of Hell. This garbage heap was made for the sole purpose of torturing the worst of the worst souls in Hell.
If I seem calm it’s because this cinematic kanker sore literally ripped my soul clean out of me. I have no energy left in me to be angry. Just severely depressive. I think I can muster some for my final thought on this movie pile of rotting crap though.
GO TO HELL FRIEDBERG AND SELTZER!
Man, that felt good.
slumdog millionaire! good rating.
disaster movie? i will make sure to read my Bible to make sure I never watch this film.