Reviews

Mike had screening passes for Star Wars Episode III, which was neat because I got to see it two full weeks before it comes out. I went into this not expecting much, after seeing the first two. I will state this now, George Lucas is dead to me, he was slowly dieing until I bought the original trilogy on DVD and it had the computer animation in it, then he died. This movie was entertainment, little more. It did not try to be a 'The Matrix' and re-explain life for suckers to suck up. George Lucas in some ways did not learn his lesson from the last two though. He did not learn that we do not go to Star Wars for politics, and we don't go to Star Wars for love stories? And it was this ignorance of his that made for some really long and drawn out parts of the film. CGI does not impress me, and as you probably are all aware that's all this movie was. Massive amounts of CGI. I much prefer a beautifully constructed model some artisan spent months on over something made in a computer. The mixing of the audio was quite good on the other hand. Things would come from all directions around you, which shows that perhaps Hollywood is learning that not everyone is def in one ear. Remember the commercials for the increadable hulk where you never saw the hulk on the ground, he was always flying through the air. It was a very similar experience with the computer generated Wookies in this movie. When will Hollywood learn that some people do have a natural sense of physics, and are not fooled by this. Anakin going over to the dark side was far too freaking easy, Senator said come to the dark side, he said no, he said come to the dark side, Anakin said all right, then Anakin goes and kills a herd of children.(I'm not making this up) Then the senator wants to overthrow the council, he goes and says, "I should be supreme ruler, this Republic should be an Empire" and the council was like "Alright, we never really liked democracy any way." Oh, and the worst part of all, Obi-Wan Kenobi spends a third of the movie riding a giant salamander on an ant planet... Overall, I give it a 6/10... I mean had they used models and elaborate sets instead of cheesy CGI (especially the lava part) it almost could have earned an 8, I meen the plot wasn't too bad (unlike the last two, can anyone even tell me what the last two were about?) and it was entertaining. To summarize, the sound was great, the CGI overused, and boring parts long and drawn out.

This is probably the most amazing thing I have ever seen and maybe the most beautiful thing I will ever see. I was literally stunned for 30 minutes after viewing it. Now most of you are probably not acquainted with Andrei Tarkovsky and if your are not don't start with this move. Even more of you are probably not familiar with Sven Nykvist. Both are masters beyond words and This is the only time you will get to see them working together. The plot is hard to describe. Basically Alexander sees visions and thinks that he is the only one who can prevent world war three. The story greatly parallels the story of Job but with the questions unanswered and reward un-given. The larger issue is to explore faith and all the light and darkness that surrounds it. This is at the heart of all Tarkovsky's work and every film is one of those deep edifying experiences that make us all better as people.

Andalusian Dog is one of those movies that most will fall in love instantly, or find incredibly annoying to watch because of its random and meaningless progression. It truly is a meaningless succession of events, which is exactly what it was meant to be. The movie is the early work of surrealist Luis Brunuel. It starts out with the infamous eye cutting scene, followed by a man dressed as a nun riding a bike, and eventually leads to such scenes as a man dragging 2 priests tied to a piano with a dead horse laying to it.

There is nothing in the film that connects these scenes. If one tries too hard to elaborate on the inner meanings of the scenes, they will be sorely disappointed. The title itself has little meaning. Andalusian is just a type of Spanish horse and the dog is self explanatory. Although there is little to ponder in the scenes, the reason for the chaotic nature has a bit more possibilities. Either it was created purely for the confusing effect that it would inflict on the viewer’s pre-conceived reality, as is the objective of the surrealists. It could be trying to hold on to some of the Dadaists ideals, which by 1929 had already died. More likely it could have been a new director just beginning to grasp his new medium, and Andalusian Dog being the product of his experimentation.

Whether you like it or not, in the end, it still worth watching for its historical value.

To be honest, I cannot adequately describe how amazing this film is. Raoul Duke aka Hunter S. Thompson is assigned to write an article about some race in Las Vegas. He does, but it's written from the point of view of a mind in the clutches of a hardcore drug binge. It's a wild movie full of bizaar and hilarious one-liners. Just go see it. Now.

I am sure 90% of the people reading this have seen Amélie, and the other 10% are wondering how in the heck they ended up on this site. This movie has been on my list of to-see for quite some time but I had never gotten around to it. In fact, the only reason I caught this gem is that I was trapped in Watertown and saw it on Voom World Cinema. Quite honestly, it blew away all my expectations. The movie was entertainment, and yet? it was so much more then that. The movie, to me at least, represented life. It had everything in life, be it death, sadness, happiness, sex, everything, and yet did it in such a way that leaves you feeling much better off for watching. For anyone who has not seen it, it is a movie about a very oddball, quiet, almost living though the lives of others, girl who works in a café and has consciously decided to improve the lives of those around her. She finds love in the processes and enriches many people's lives. The only part I did not care for out of the entire film were some computer-animated sequences, though tasteful felt out of place. It is not a huge complaint though, and did not detract from the film unlike some movies I could name. (Cough: lost in space ... rubber space monkey) I would have to say overall Amélie is one of the best movies I have ever seen, though it really becomes hard to judge best. It is definitely the most uplifting film I have ever seen though. It gives me faith in humanity.

This is truly a psychological (thriller?) film if there ever was one. It's categorized as horror, though I'm still not sure if anything in the film was supposed to have been real or all just in the girls mind. Also, this movie has the best use of 5.1 I have ever heard; I mean it was amazing; they had direction on nearly every sound. If you do watch the movie, make sure you get a 5.1 version out of a 5.1 compatible system. None of this pro-logic crap.

This is a very entertaining South Korean movie (they're rare). It starts out with a girl and her sister coming back from what you assume is a mental institution to rejoin their family. Their step mom though seems to be pure evil. Soon after returning, the older daughter, Soo-mi, has a strange dream where she is in a forest of bamboo and her sister is dead, she then wakes up to something crawling on the floor. It stands up and is a dead girl, similar to that of the ring, except it has a broken neck. Soo-mi sits there in sheer terror as it climbs onto the bed. Blood starts dripping down its leg, and all of a sudden from between its legs (its wearing a skirt) an arm shoots out and grabs her leg. She then wakes up and assumes it was all a dream.

It seems as though the step mom and the daughters just can't get along, until eventually it builds up to the step mom locking Soo-yeon (the younger sister) in a wardrobe. Soo-mi comes in and lets her out, and when the father comes up to investigate, Soo-mi tells him how the step mom locked her in the wardrobe. Now here's where it gets interesting, the father replies something to the extent of 'Quit these games, Soo-yeon is dead' This is very confusing because you have seen Soo-yeon interact with a number of people(?) Especially the step mom who had locked her in the closet.

After this point, it looses all sense. I still have not quite figured out what was what, because it gets very complicated. Here's the gist of it though as I understand it (skip this if you ever plan on watching it) The step mom kills Soo-yeon (who's supposable already dead) Soo-mi goes looking for Soo-yeon and finds her dead in a sack (we don't see it but we assume its her) Then Soo-mi assumes that she actually is insane, and asks the step mom for help, at which point the step mom agrees to help her and smashes her with a statue, killing her. Then the father comes in, finds Soo-mi and the Step mom, but, now here's where everything goes to hell, the step mom comes in the door, and for a second there are two step moms in the room. It is then that the first step mom, the one who's gone on the murderous rampage realizes that in fact she is Soo-yeon (the one who the father said was dead) It then cuts to her in a mental institution again.

After this there is a flashback (I assume) of their original mom hanging her self in a wardrobe, and then the wardrobe falling on Soo-yeon and crushing her to death?

I really suggest watching this film with someone else because it is so confusing you will want to discuss it. I do believe I have done a horrible job hacking together the plot for you, so watch it and prove me wrong.

Kevin Spacey plays Bobby Darin, for those of you who don't know, was a singer from the 50-70's who had such hits as 'Splish Splash' and the aforementioned 'Beyond the Sea.'

The movie starts out with Bobby Darin filming a movie, about his life none the less. A reporter comes up to him and asks him "Aren't you too old to be playing this role?" He responds something like "Who better to play the role?" He never actually filmed a movie of his life, and it puzzled me why they would include this the first couple days after I saw it.

After this there is a flash back to when he was a young boy, the doctor was there, and told Bobbies (Not his real name) mother that he would not live past 13. It then goes through him learning music while growing up, and eventually leaving to go into the music business. He changes his name to "Bobby Darin" based on a sign he saw on a Chinese restaurant.

It occurred to me that, the movie he was filming in the beginning was not actually a movie, but a representation of him, playing Bobby Darin. The reporter asking aren't you too old for this role asked that because he was supposed to have died at the age of 13, but he went on to be 37 years of age. This actually seemed really cleaver to me when I first figured it out, which is funny because before I understood it I thought it was just really stupid.

The movie goes through his life, his marriage, the troubles with his marriage, and how he spent very little time with his son, and his eventual death, which many points where he will randomly break out into song and dance, such as when he is romancing his woman. We had planed on seeing something else, but we arrived late and it was the latest showing, and felt very out of place because most of the people seeing the movie were in there 50's or so. At the points where he broke out into song, I often found my self laughing uncontrollably at the sheer akwardness of the abrupt change of style.

Overall it was a decent movie, though I feel bad about paying 8 dollars to see it.

The Aviator is more or less a biography of Howard Hughes. Those of you not aware of Howard Hughes are probably my age and not put in raptures by shiny or really big planes. This movie was way too long. There was little action in a movie that everyone should have known the ending going into. Allot of people will say that the camera work and the direction is flawless. This can be said of most Spielberg wastes of time. Flawless with out an artistic vision is boring. I'm not as up with Scorsese as I should be but he seems to make allot of pseudo-art like this, that?s just boring. Although, this might be worth the $1 at a second run.

This movie was fairly unremarkable in almost everyway. That being said it wasen't half bad. Now there was one fairly bad office scene and some actuly warented Dennis Quaid butt but not quite enough to ruin the movie. The sappy romance factor is high and the photagraphy is a bit slap-dash for my taste. Topher Grace's acting is weak at best and he has a major part in the movie. Catch it in second run if your bored. . . but be fairly bored unless your taking a chick. . . she will asuredly like it more than you do. . .

Finally a new comic book movie that doesn't suck ass. American Splendor highlights the miserable life of Harvey Pekar, a disgruntled file clerk who in the film is played by Paul Giametti(who does an amazing job) and Pekar himself at times. Now you could be thinking "omgwtf he's played by two people in the movie?" Don't worry, the way they pulled it off is quite classy - I enjoyed it. The overall style of the film was neat, I liked the use of the comic-book style accents as well as the cuts where they showed drawings fromthe actual book that reflected the scene you were seeing in the movie. All this topped off with very cynical humor creates a definate cult classic. See this now.