the vynsane asylum

I've seen several movies lately. Here are my unsolicited thoughts on them.

Cloud Atlas - I really liked its scale and ambition and want to see it again to see more of the connections between time periods and that sort of thing. Yeah, the makeup was distracting at times, but sometimes I couldn't tell who was playing a role. Definitely very unique, and my favorite Wachowski brothers siblings movie since the first or second Matrix, probably.

Skyfall - I'm not a James Bond fan and have only seen Moonraker a long-ass time ago and Goldfinger the day I saw Skyfall, so even though I got the nods and references and all that, they were "eh" for me. I didn't realize that Goldfinger was so damn goofy, with Bond's quips and ridiculous outfits and sexism and so on, so I wasn't sure what to make of it - Skyfall is much more serious, probably too much so, but it was a pretty good action movie overall.

Wreck-It Ralph - I loved the designs and clever moments, and the first part of the movie while discovering the world was really cool. Some of the humor wasn't quite hitting, perhaps due to Sarah Silverman's young character, who was never truly annoying but kept up with the little kid toilet humor. The movie also spends a disproportionately long time in the Sugar Rush world, which is for a candy-themed racing game, that it often feels more like a candyland movie than a video game movie. Still, quite good, and a hell of a lot better than what most of Disney Animation has been putting out the last several years. Which leads me to . . .

Tangled - This was on Starz, and my family wanted to watch it over Thanksgiving. I actually enjoyed it a lot - it was a well-told story reminiscent of classic Disney movies. It had good humor that was suitable for all ages without relying too much on one audience or the other, which a studio like Dreamworks hasn't pulled off (and a few Disney ones were shitty at this as well). The bar scene was pretty hilarious.

Lincoln - It has great performances, yes, but it too often lapses into feeling like a lecture, with old guys sitting around and talking (though this gets better as the film continues). It could probably have been tightened up, and the action or locations could have been varied more, but it was still pretty well done. Tommy Lee Jones was awesome, and Daniel Day-Lewis WAS Lincoln. James Spader and his wacky mustache and accent took me out of it a little but other than that it was solid.

Life of Pi. Entertaining movie. I didn't see the 3D version, but I imagine some of the scenes would've looked pretty cool in 3D. Like when Richard Parker eats the hyena.

John Carter - It was okay. A little too overcomplicated and I didn't really give much of a shit about anyone in it. I like Andrew Stanton but it sounds like he was a real douche about this one and look how well that turned out. It was well directed but the story should have been told more effectively.

X-Men: First Class - Pretty goddamn good - a really solid, fun movie. If Matthew Vaughn ends up directing Episode VII, I'll be very happy.

Senor JabbaJohnL wrote: Tangled [...] It had good humor that was suitable for all ages without relying too much on one audience or the other, which a studio like Dreamworks hasn't pulled off [...]

not true! dreamworks really hit one out of the park with "how to train your dragon" - it's a really well-told story with no real "adult humor" that would make you uneasy watching it with a young kid (the way it did in shrek 2 - GOD was that an uncomfortable trip to the theater with my wife's young cousin... yeesh...)

Haven't seen HTTYD yet, but I'd argue Kung Fu Panda fits your description pretty well.

The only real storytelling weaknesses in John Carter stem from the fact that everyone involved expected it to be a trilogy. There's a lot of stuff, particularly involving the Therns, that was clearly intended to be built upon. (These Therns were MUCH more powerful than the religious hucksters from the novels.) And it differs pretty widely from the books, so you can't just read the entire series and know where the planned film series was going.

vynsane wrote:

Senor JabbaJohnL wrote: Tangled [...] It had good humor that was suitable for all ages without relying too much on one audience or the other, which a studio like Dreamworks hasn't pulled off [...]

not true! dreamworks really hit one out of the park with "how to train your dragon" - it's a really well-told story with no real "adult humor" that would make you uneasy watching it with a young kid (the way it did in shrek 2 - GOD was that an uncomfortable trip to the theater with my wife's young cousin... yeesh...)

Oh yeah, I've heard good things about that one. I've just been turned off from Dreamworks since Shrek 2 and the fact that they made shit like Bee Movie and Shark Tale. Looking over their roster, I guess they have done things that people have generally liked as well - so maybe they're like the anti-Pixar, routinely creating shit but once in a while creating something great.

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Killing Them Softly. A Hitman kills a bunch of people and then haggles over the price of his fee for services rendered at the end. Boring and pointless.

Miracle - Yes, finally got around to seeing it. It just happened to be on TV. Never really saw the need to watch it before since I've seen 2 or 3 documentaries on the 1980 Olympic Hockey team, plus, I watched the game when it was on in 1980. I've seen the USSR/USA game a few times since then on one of those Classic Games shows. It was pretty good. Better than I thought it would be. Kurt Russel did a good job. The only thing I found strange was that during some of the in-game scenes, they were panning extras in the crowd instead of showing hockey.

I rented borrowed the network mini series Shogun from the library. I hadn't seen it since I was six or seven years old. And obviously most of it went over my head back then. I also had no idea who Toshiro Mifune was in 1980 when I was six.

I was taken back at how much they got away with considering this was network television in the early 80s. Full on decapitations, urinating on people, full frontal nudity of some hottie Japanese babes(granted it was filmed in shadow/silhouette, but still). The politics of 1600 Japan were fascinating. Not only the internal politics of the rival Japanese lords jostling for power, but also the European politics as the devout catholic and Jesuits of Spain and Portugal feuding with Chamelberlain's English Captain of a Dutch ship and all the duplicitous backstabbing.
John Rhys-Davies was fantastic as the Portuguese boat captain "frenemy" of Chamberlain's Blackthorne. This was the film that got him noticed by Spielberg and rocketed him to stardom.

A fine work from the Golden Age of TV miniseries.

Jack Reacher. An above average police thriller. Hard to believe Tom Cruise is 50. There's a supporting role in the last half of the film that's a pleasant surprise. The actor was in none of the trailers, but has a connection to Cruise. I read many people were complaining because the movie isn't "actiony" enough. Those people are ADD afflicted Michael Bay desciples. The film is plenty good. It's also great to see Chris McQuarrie behind the camera again. Way of the Gun is an underrated classic.

It's Oscar Season so I checked out

Les Miserables. It was a little long for me, and I'm not a big fan having exposition sung to me. But the look of the film (cinematography, Art direction, costumes, etc) was remarkable and the performances were solid. I was particularly struck by newcomer Samantha Barks. She's a hottie and as she gets more roles people will notice and tongues will start wagging.

And

Zero Dark Thirty. It was a decent film, but I don't know what all the Oscar Buzz is about. Especially the acting nods. I think it's because she teared up at the end. Tears give Oscar voters boners.

It was free premium channels on DirecTV this weekend. All of the HBOs, Showtimes, Starz, etc. yet there wasn't much I wanted to see.

American Reunion wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.

Caught the last of Batman with Michael Keyton. It looks more and more dated every time I see it.

I recorded Goon, but haven't watched it yet.

Ran wrote: Caught the last of Batman with Michael Keyton. It looks more and more dated every time I see it.

It holds up better as a Tim Burton film than it does a Batman/SuperHero film.


If you DVR a bunch of Showtime and HBO shows while they're free, Will they still be on your TV after the promotion time ends?

RoIIo Tomassi wrote:

Ran wrote: Caught the last of Batman with Michael Keyton. It looks more and more dated every time I see it.

It holds up better as a Tim Burton film than it does a Batman/SuperHero film.


If you DVR a bunch of Showtime and HBO shows while they're free, Will they still be on your TV after the promotion time ends?

Especially the part where Batman tries to shoot the Joker with guns on the Batwing.

As to the DVR question: yeah, you'll still have them recorded after the free time.