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blacklaetherglove
Reviews
Little Nemo (1989)
I waited 10 years...for this??!!
I wanted to see this movie very badly when I was a pre-teen, maybe 10 or 11. It looked so cute, like a lot of the movies at that time. I remember Christopher Lloyd & his various guises in the voice acting world, and imagined this to be of a similar calibur. How sadly I was mistaken. Unlike Disney, whose calculated quality assures something you will enjoy, whether you like it or not, this is an animated feature with liitle charm & little to keep my interest. The characters felt like something snatched from Don Bluth, but with none of the individuality or charm. The half-hearted, unpleasant musical number (I only remember one: when Nemo is being instructed in the proper way to conduct himself, reading books, standing up straight & such) is painful to watch, and I wished that Nemo had resisted the adult forces. He didn't. The plot in predictable & contrived. Think Pandora's box meets the standard "let's go on a journey to find ____, meet new friends, learn something important about ourselves..." type plot. As cool as the scene with the bed coming alive & leaping thru the rooftops looks, don't put yourself thru the torture that is this movie.
Scary Movie 2 (2001)
Why is this constantly on Comedy Central?
I keep tuning in at about the scene where the girls all tear their clothes off and change into different outfits. I think it was based on Charlies Angels or something.. Anyway, the end part that I have seen takes place in a generic dungeon, and there's a mad scientist doing something bad. People get electrocuted in that cartoony way where their hair gets blown black, and their faces and covered in soot. In one version (it is censored in a few different ways), there is a scene that shows the inside of one character's head, and there's a little dude getting stoned inside. I liked that moment, only because it was different than every other time I had seen the movie. This is something you tune into & keep watching because you have already seen every movie in HBO's current lineup. While the other Scary Movies parody contemporary horror films, this one seems aimed more at the "Young Frankenstein"s of the movie world: Mel Brook's vision of horror. Perhaps because I am in no way a Mel Brooks fan (I've tried....hated them all...), this movie is not something I have ever enjoyed.
Scary Movie 3 (2003)
IMHO, best of the "scary movies"
OK, so I can no longer remember anything about scary movie 1, and I don't know if I even saw the beginning of scary movie 2 (I doubt, based on the end, that I'm missing much), but having just seen the 4th one, I can say that this is my favorite by far. The movies parodied include: Signs, the 6th Sense, 8 mile, the Ring, and in the alternate ending, the Incredible Hulk. The alternate endings available on the DVD, altho shot on a noticeably much lower budget, were much funnier than the original. Perhaps this is because I had actually seen the movies being parodied in the alternate endings, but I liked them better. The "6th Sense" ending, which focused on Cody, was pretty stupid, even if you have actually seen that movie. I didn't see Signs, and don't plan to, but my friend informed me that a running joke in the movie, "swing away", is based on that. I didn't think it was funny, and I thought it sucked that the pivitol points of the movie were based on that.
Scary Movie 4 (2006)
Not exactly funny, but it has it's moments..
Those are the words of my friend as w left the theatre. I agree with her on that. I hadn't actually seen many of the movies parodied, which included: Million Dollar Baby, the Grudge, the Village, Brokeback Mountain, War of the Worlds, Saw (don't know if it was supposed to be Saw 1 or Saw 2...), maybe Osmosis Jones, Oprah, & GWB... The movie ripped on modern culture, too. It was one of those where you say: yeah, that's me right there. iPod, Myspace, etc. got their comeuppance. It was just the cute little moments that made the movie. My favorite moment was easily the sponge bath scene. Having seen Ju-On, the Korean (Korean, right? Not Japanese...) version of the Grudge, I remember a similar scene where the caretaker gave the catatonic old lady a bath or something. In this movie, the sponge missed the water bucket & went straight for the urine filled bedpan. :D
Trois couleurs: Bleu (1993)
Wow! No explosions, yet still good.
According to my film 2 professor, this film is what is known as a character film. That means it shows the invisible, what is happening in the character's soul. OK, doesn't sound like my thing, but whatever, I was down for a free movie & getting out of a class or two. The movie starts with this little girl, focusing on her & her point of view, she gets in & out of a car, she sees the world as she rides in the car. As a side note, the audio wasn't working the 1st day, so the bass was very heavy. I think watching the movie this way, or at least the very beginning, helps to enhance to feeling the director chose to create of being underwater. Moving on. The camera focuses on a teenage boy sitting by the side of the road, & he watches the car drive by. He looks away. Off camera, we hear a crash. It was the car. Somehow, by not showing the actual crash, then showing the devastated car, the feeling the audience is able to experience is parrallel to that of any bystander: you hear a noise, expect it to be something mundane, and are filled with shock to realize that it is not. The rest of the movie focuses on the girl's mother, crushed to find that her husband & daughter died in the crash. At first she is self destructive, attempting suicide, having a loveless affair with an old friend, and dragging her knuckles along a stone wall until they tear & bleed. Later, she moves into an apartment, befriends her prostitute neighbor, and goes swimming. Her life is more in her control. Sadly, she finds that her husband had an affair, and the woman is now pregnant. She decided to give her husband's son their old house, and the movie ends with a sequence of everyone, showing how unhappy their lives are. The color blue appears throughout the movie, especially in a glass chandaleir whose importance is left to the viewers imagination.
Nine Lives (2005)
If you liked coffee & cigarettes....
...which I didn't, then perhaps you would like this movie. Now, I have seen a few "character" or "art" films in my time. Hell, I loved "Three Colors: Blue" by Kiaslovski (I can't spell his name!). THAT movie was well made. THIS movie was awful. I didn't get through the first 2 stories. The first, altho not to my liking, was watchable. It was a woman in prison, and she has problems, the guards treat her bad, she wants to speak to her daughter. Standard prison plot fare. The actress, and I hesitate to call her that, was terrible. I sincerely hope this was her first movie. The thought that an experienced actress would have such trouble with basic emphasis is appalling. Perhaps English is not her native language. That's fine, but that's also what voice coaches & directors are for. Speaking of directors, the guy/chick who made this should be banned from ever making another movie again. I don't know how the script avoided whatever checks normally take place so that the dialogue stays dramatic, not silly, but it did. This is like the diary of the existientialist woman from I heart Huckabees, but far less interesting. I almost wish I could remember some of the things the actresses said, but I'm happier not knowing. I must mention the 2nd sequence. A pregnant woman meets someone from her past in a supermarket. They take 10 minutes to say nothing. She shops for another endless span of time. They talk again. I don't know what they said, because at this point, I was so bored I was watching the movie at 4x speed. I believe the point was she still had feelings for him, or something. I don't know how it ended, because each sequence ends before the stories of the people involved, i.e. no resolution whatsoever. And it went on like this. A woman walks thru her house, talks to people, shoots herself in the head. That moment would have been interesting, had it been shown. For the love of God, something to break up the monotony of this -nothing- movie. I managed a few minutes of the 4th story, slowed it down to hear the talking, wished I hadnt when I realized it was a New Age "feelings" type of rant, ejected the DVD. Bottom line: Don't waste your time.
Airheads (1994)
Never gets old
This is one of the great ones, you know? Every single thing is great about this movie. The actors are great, the costumes are great, the sets are believable, the plot owns, the script has a nice flow. This goes great with "Empire Records." I liked that, and I love this. Brendon Fraser is the ultra-mega-hot lead guitarist/singer of this awesome band, the Lone Rangers. He has a crappy apartment, I don't think he has a job, and his girlfriend is mad at him for trying to make his band work instead of growing up. She iss a Heather Locklear-style 90s bitch, and so works so well as that. The jokes keep going thru-out, and are actually funny, even after repeated viewings. I love the fake plastic water pisols ak47s filled with hot sauce. That was great! I highly recommend this movie is you want to watch a good movie, not something you will have to work up to sitting thru.
Tonari no Totoro (1988)
cute, but not just for kids
After years of the Totoro plushies, I had a feeling this would be ultra-cutesy, Disnified, singsong fluff. It's not. It starts out with 2 little girls, aged about 9 & 4, moving into their new house. The house is pretty run down, and it's my guess that the family moved there either to be closer to the hospital where the mother was, or to help pay for the mother's medical bills. After seeing some "dust bunnies", which later appear in Miazaki's "Spirited Away", the youngest girl goes exploring & finds a tunnel into another, magical world. When she falls asleep on Totoro, who is like a big cat tolerating a child pulling its tail, she wakes up in the tunnel, and when she tries to find her way back, the tunnel just goes back outside again. About 20& of the movie is like this, the girls discovering magic things that disappear. For being young, they have a lot to deal with. In one scene,, they wait all day & night in the rain for their dad to come. Totoro appears, and adorableness ensues. At the end, in the credits, the animators hint that the mother comes home & possibly has another baby. It's a good end to a good story, but one that might be missed if you leave early :P
The Party (1968)
this is really awesome
The movie starts out normal: Peter Sellars arrives at a party. Then one little thing goes amiss, followed by another, and another, until you have bubble bath in the pool, elephant painted with "go naked" slogan, dancing clothed in the pool insanity. The theme song is permanently burned in my brain after seeing in on TV. The channel I watched it on had only 1 commercial, for a refrigerator with the freezer on the bottom, repeated over & over. Every time they went to commercial, they showed a clip of the climax of the movie with "When the party gets groovy & everyone loses their control." It's been a few years & I still remember that song. This is probably a good party movie in itself. It's not "'80s" funny, where it's just funny enough. It it cute & unusual, and I loved it. I can't recall ever seeing another Peter Sellers film. I suppose this is his forte, and if so, he does it well.
Party Monster (2003)
weird movie
I was drunk when I rented this, so my viewing experience was one that paralleled that of several (ok, all) the characters in the film, I'm sure. Let's just say it involved many paused & trips to the bathroom so I could vomit. The plot is a bunch of "club kids" in New York in the '80s get paid to have partied & DJ and fashion shows and all that. I did not know of their existence until the film. Macaulay Culkin fit the role of the most wasted club kid a little too well. If I remember the plot correctly (the characters were very similar in their lives & such), he was drawn into the club scene by his gay friend, Seth Green's character. Then he outdoes Seth, who gets jealous. There are a lot of fags & drug addicts, and the line blends as to who is what and where they all stand, at least the line in my mind. I still can't remember if Keoki dies or not. Or which one is Angel. I KNOW there was a character named Angel, or maybe I'm just thinking of the guy with the angel costume. I saw there was a DJ Keoki playing a bar or something near me, so I googled him, but I'm not sure if it's the same guy. I think the real Keoki died in real life. All in all, the movie was watchable. If you're into him, Pogo (Marilyn Manson's keyboardist) has a cameo about 48 minutes into the film, but does not speak.
Kaze no tani no Naushika (1984)
Movie & a Message
The version of the movie I have seen is the DVD release. I watched the dub version. The voice acting on the dub is very good. Uma Therman & Patrick Stewart are in it, so you know it will be good. Included on a second disc are little featurettes. A cute one was where they showed the actors in the studio, wearing their shorts & hanging out, discussing the challenges of inflection in a translated script. Uma Therman was laughing about how she learned Japanese for Kill Bill, but still had trouble with the emphasis, since often it is reversed. The movie itself was remastered. The style is very 80s. It is sort of dated in a retro way. The creatures & settings are very well drawn and highly detailed. The thing I really like about the movie was the fact that it was not just about a young girl struggling to keep her village safe, but also about the footprint humans are leaving on the planet. Miazaki has a way of sneaking a moral into a story so subtly that you hardly notice. In this case, he really shined.
Hauru no ugoku shiro (2004)
Last one?
This is another of Mayao Miazaki's masterpieces. The story is solid, the characters are interesting & unique, the animation is breathtaking. The story arc of Sophie's journey is fairly straightforward. Howl's adventures, however, are much more complicated & leave much to the imagination. The war he fights is never explained. I have read articles saying that villains in Miazaki's movies are never really all bad. The witch of the waste in this movie was used as an example. I somewhat disagree. While the witch was indeed on the darker side of the moral spectrum, she was not the true villain. The king character, whose motives are never clarified in the dub, seems to be bad with no redeeming qualities. So there goes that theory. I've heard a rumor that this will be Miazaki's last film. It does contain references to his other films throughout, such as the black ooze characters, which strongly resemble Noh Face from Spirited Away. It would be appropriate for him to pay homage to his earlier works if he is indeed no longer going to make films. It also creates a very sad blanket over the film.
The Warriors (1979)
More funny than intended
This is the first film we saw in my film class. The point of showing it was to showcase the warrior archetype. But you don't care about that. This is a movie to watch with friends & popcorn. There ae many moments that were originally intended to be serious or even "deep" but they were lost into the cheesiness of history. The female love interest has a mustache, for crying out loud! All in all, I did enjoy the movie. It becomes a feel good movie, and you root for the Warriors. Swan, the main character, is pretty good looking overall. I really liked his character - he was the noble one, but he wasn't a rule-following pussy as so many others. The opening speech, where the tagline "can you dig it" comes from, is one of the funnier moments. The villain in his car at the end is one of the funniest things ever put on film. The ending alone makes it worth watching.
Lady Lovelylocks and the Pixietails (1987)
omfg
I have not seen this show since I was 5 years old. I thought it was so great when I saw it, but only one episode was available at the time. I always wondered what happened next. I believe I still have the toys that went with this show, hair clips shaped like animals and a horse whose hair I put them in. I really loved this show. Or maybe I hated it. I really can not remember that far back. I just looked up the guy who created Rainbow Brite, and it turns out it's a French guy who also created Popples, Care Bears, Kissyfur, etd. I love this guy's stuff! It only exists to sell toys & merchandise, of course, but it still has a nostalgic value for me.
Gasaraki (1998)
boo-oooooring
I've seen about the first 12 episodes. At first it was bizarre & disconnected, then overly technical. They have looong speeches about how the robots work, with no real purpose. I got the box set for Christmas, so I plan to finish it, but I end up doing Sudoku the entire time. The only remotely interesting parts deal with the various political plots & assassinations, but those are few & far between. The three distinct plot lines have absolutely no relation to each other, and now there appear to be clone things or something that is not even explained or relevant. The voice acting is terrible - it is more suited to a comedy than a drama.
The Boondock Saints (1999)
funny
This is the best movie I've seen so far in my film class. It was one of those where they show a scene, then skip a scene, then show what happened in the middle, over & over again. It was really easy to understand, tho. The only thing I didn't pick up on is the fact that the psycho character was the Irish brother's father, & that's why they went on a killing spree as a family. The realized it when they all said the secret prayer. The weirdness of the movie was all Willem Defoe. He plays the FBI agent. I knew something was amiss when he listened to classical music & did his best Hannibal Lector impression with waving his hands around. A few scenes later he is shown answering the phone in bed, naked from the waist up, with his boyfriend cuddling up next to him. At the end of the movie, he dresses in drag, makes out with a gangster, then shoots him. He makes the world's ugliest woman. Some funny things that happened were: Ron Jeremy's cameo (he dies in a peep show booth), the actor Bob Marley (not the legendary singer, some skinny white guy), & the cat accidentally getting shot.
Trucks (1997)
funny
This was a movie I saw when it first came out. I believe it was straight to video or made for TV, because it was on basic cable in the same year IMDb shows it as premiering. Anyway, this is perfect for that kind of setting, with people coming in and out of the room all the time. It's not exactly something with a gripping plotling that makes you think. It comes with all the intellligence of a John Woo movie, but none of the delicious eye candy explosions. My friends and I made fum of it the entire time, especially at the end when some of the stupid redneck trucker characters got what was coming to them. It's bad, almost so bad it is good, but not quite. If mst3k still did shows, this is the kinda of movie they would be laughing at.