Movie Review-Corpse Bride/Tenth Entry

“Corpse Bride,” is hand animated using stop-motion technology and shot with digital still cameras, the look of the film is much more polished than Burton’s first foray into animation (1993’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas”), but the characters still recall the art of Edward Gorey and Gahan Wilson, and the subject matter manages to be both macabre and touching at the same time.
Victor Van Dort is a timid young man who views his approaching wedding to the sweeter than sweet Victoria Everglot with something more than the usual groom’s jitters. The marriage is being arranged by both sets of parents. Victor’s mom and dad are fishmongers who, while they have achieved some reasonable financial success, are looking for the legitimacy a union with the old money Everglots will confer. The Everglots, while they may once have been “old money,” are one step away from the poorhouse, and wish to take advantage of the Van Dorts’ financial largesse.
after Victor muffs the rehearsal and wanders into the woods to ponder his fate, things start happening. Through a series of goofy coincidences that make perfect sense in context, Victor ends up married to Emily, the Corpse Bride. She promptly whisks Victor off to the land of the dead, and this is when the action really picks up.
Burton’s conception of the afterlife here differs from the bureaucratic nightmare of “Beetlejuice.” Up in the realm of the living, it's all dreary Victorian propriety, while down below they're shooting pool, drinking beer, and jamming to a slightly anachronistic skeletal jazz combo. Victor is unimpressed, however, and wants to return to Victoria. Anyone else could be forgiven for sticking around, as Burton makes it quite apparent that there's much more fun and, indeed, joie de vivre to be had among the dead than amongst the living.
The remainder of the film’s rather short running time (less than 80 minutes) is spent dealing with the Corpse Bride’s efforts to keep Victor down below, while the Everglots scheme to marry off Victoria to a mystery man who may have a deeper connection to events than would first appear.
For a movie with occasionally necrophiliac overtones, there's very little here that will scare anyone. Death, as Burton sees it, is merely another state of being (and another state of residence), rather than a choice between heaven or hell. Those who pass on don't have to worry about a destination preordained by some capricious and vengeful Supreme Being, but simply move to another town, albeit one with talking spiders and more bones than a Día de los Muertos parade. The biggest complaint is that more time isn’t spent among the denizens, learning about their world.
Johnny Depp is top billed here, and is more than adequate as Victor, but Helena Bonham Carter really shines in the role of Emily. You can understand why Victor wouldn’t want to stay wed to a woman in the process of decomposing, but (and I may be exposing my own personal biases here) the goth girls are always more appealing than the straight-laced ones. Albert Finney (as Victoria’s father) and Christopher Lee (as the pastor) are also excellent.

Movie Review-Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan/Ninth Entry

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is as much fun to say as it is to watch. British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, as the confused and uninhibited oaf of a reporter from Kazakhstan, fills up nearly every second of screen time in ways that get more and more and more outrageous. There are moments of Borat that are so thoroughly obscene that you'll wonder how in the world it managed to get an "R" rating. But even discounting those, this is a film that offends absolutely everybody. It will offend whites, blacks, gays, and straights. It will incense Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike. It will startle and shock Northeners and Southerners; liberals and conservatives; feminists and fundamentalists; bears and chickens. Borat even sparked a minor international incident over the summer when it became one of the topics of a summit between President Bush and his enraged Kazakh counterpart.My kind of movie.It's not hard to understand what has Kazakhstan's government so angry. Most Americans have probably never heard the name of this former Soviet satellite country, let alone could find it on a map—and Borat introduces it as a backward little hellhole in which automobiles are pulled by horse teams, rape is a cottage industry, and the national pastime is the annual "Running of the Jew" ("There you go, kids, crush that Jew chick before it hatches!"). It's a perfect third-world distillation of what most of us imagine countries with names like "Kazakhstan" to be like, which was probably Baron Cohen's point.But if Borat Sagdiyev's Kazakhstan is a parody of the actual place, the America he visits is very real. And that's because Baron Cohen, who from all reports hasn't stepped out of character in at least the last two or three years, has descended upon us under the pretense of being a genuine documentarian. The reactions of most of his interview "subjects", from a TV meteorologist who breaks down laughing as Borat unwittingly destroys his weather report to the genteel southern dinner hosts who eject him after he presents them with a bag of his own feces, are genuine, and often revealing of dark and ridiculous things lurking within our own national subconscious. Baron Cohen is nothing if not a provocateur: when "Borat" cons his way into singing the national anthem at a Dallas rodeo, he proclaims to the crowd Kazakhstan's solidarity with America's "War of Terror" (great applause) and cries "May George W. Bush drink the blood of every man, woman, and child in Iraq!" (more scattered, confused applause.) When he finally substitutes his own country's mock anthem to the tune of "The Star-Spangled Banner", the reaction is predictably angry. Borat gets a much friendlier reception when he allows himself to be converted at a Christian revival meeting; spiritually renewed, he vows to continue his journey with the help of "my friend, Mister Jesus!" My liberal friend kept elbowing me in the shoulder at the jokes involving "Premier Bush", but we were both laughing too hard to say anything.With all the confusion and anger Borat sows among his guileless targets, from former presidential candidate Alan Keyes ("a genuine chocolateface!") to a kindly Jewish couple whom a terrified Borat and his equally anti-Semitic producer, Azamat (Ken Davitian), believe to be bloodsucking shapeshifters, it's a wonder he lives long enough to make it to Los Angeles and Pamela Anderson, with whom he's fallen in love from an episode of "Baywatch". I won't reveal what transpires once he finally reaches her at a booksigning, except to suggest that it must have been staged. It must have. Baron Cohen got away with a hell of a lot, but there's no way he could have.... without.... well, see for yourself.Aside from a rather soft ending, the laughs literally do not stop coming from Borat. In fact, I'd strongly urge anyone with any sort of medical condition to consult their doctor before seeing it. You may have missed a hell of a B.O. opportunity by slashing the theater count, Fox, because this particular middle-America audience couldn't get enough of Borat. Not a very nice thing to pull on a guy who warned us his government would execute him if we didn't go to see his movie.

Movie Review-Mr and Mrs Smith/Eighth Entry

’m sure there are a few couples that live in perfect harmony, but if women and men were built with comparable strengths, domestic fist fights may occur more frequently (consider that adolescent brothers fight all time and don’t even share a bank account). Husband and wife, equally matched, fighting till death is the subject of this part comedy, part summer action flick, and even part chick flick. “Mr and Mrs. Smith” provides much of what it promises but in the end comes up short.
The title characters, played by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, appear to be your typical bored married couple. As you most likely already know, Mr. Smith moonlights as an assassin. But no need to feel bad for Mrs. Smith because, yep, you guessed it, she is an assassin too. They work for competing agencies so that’s probably why neither of them knows that the other shoots people for a living.
Everyone has heard the Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie rumors. They are indeed true; the two of them have great chemistry together on screen. One could only tell Pitt that he was nuts to give up Jennifer Aniston until they see Jolie, looking more voluptuous than ever, strut her stuff in “Smith”.
Let’s face it; “Smith” is a one note joke that lasts 2 hours long. The good news is that it is a darn funny joke, and director Doug Liman, whose previous credits include Swingers and The Bourne Identity, has the right comedic timing and action chops to make the joke fresh for over an hour.
Liman recruits Vince Vaughn again to play another version of our favorite wise cracking character. This time, he gets well written lines and is the kind of side kick you wish has a main role. Of course, the screen play doesn’t really know what to do with him when the anemic plot kicks in, so his character is more or less dropped.
Unfortunately, this is a movie, not a skit, so we need a plot, some twists (for this genre at least), and don’t forget the resolution. That is where the trouble lies. It isn’t so much of a problem that the hokey excuse for Mr. and Mrs. Smith to start their fighting insults our intelligence or that the movie puts the protagonists in an impossible situation and decides it isn’t important to show how they get out of it. The real problem is that by the end of the film, we’ve lost our attention and we are actually indifferent on the outcome

Movie Review-Under The Tuscan Sun/Seventh Entry

Frances (Diane Lane) is having a mid-life crisis thanks to her husband, who decides he wants a divorce - he also wants to keep the house, collect alimony, and spend the rest of his life with his new girlfriend. The break-up is a messy one and after months in the "Camp Divorce" apartments, Frances is homeless and heartbroken.With the help and encouragement of her best friend Patti (Sandra Oh), Frances takes her settlement check and heads off to tour Italy. To prove to herself she can be spontaneous, Frances makes an impulse buy - a dilapidated villa in Tuscany. She starts remodeling her house with a team of skilled enthusiastic Polish laborers and her ever-endearing friend/lawyer/realtor, Signor Martini (Vincent Riotta). Frances meets an Italian heartthrob, Marcello (Raoul Bova), and begins to allow the tranquility and heavenly chaos of the Tuscan sun to bring her back to life.This movie is funny and sad at the same time, with little bittersweet moments that constantly bring Frances back to reality, but the soothing effect of living on Tuscan time bring out the best in her.If ever a movie was a postcard - this is it. And unlike the postcard that Frances writes, this deserves to be sent out into the world - even if it's too poetic and you can't "smell the purple". The lush Italian landscapes, from the coast to the wine regions, are a cinematographer's dream - kudos to Geoffrey Simpson for making it look like a fantasyland. Diane Lane delivers a terrific performance that rivals her Oscar-nominated role last year. She shows that she can be fun, vulnerable, dramatic, intelligent, sexy, and wounded - switching gears in an instant. There is a guidebook to Italy, but it probably doesn't have these helpful hints:
Gay & Away Tours doesn't mean it's for happy people on holiday.
Any actress that used to star in Fellini films is probably going to be dramatic.
If your renovation crew doesn't speak English, but one looks like a Polish Kevin Kline, the job might not get finished quickly, but it will be entertaining.
Italian men have a way with words and with their hands and they think all American women want to sleep with them - but if they look like Marcello, who can blame them.
This movie is smaltzy, sappy, sentimental, and romantic - so naturally, we loved it.

Movie Review-Men In Black II/Sixth Entry

MIB 2 Good stuff: creatures in the locker but they were a rip of from the 3-eyed green toys in Toystory & the frigging starwars ewocks. The dog was great but more of the same.MIB 2 Bad stuff: The aliens were rediculous, they were so seen it all before that I thought i was watching startrek. (Which I don't). Unlike first film, here there was zero fun to be had watching the interaction between Jones & Smith. At one point Smith flies a car with a joypad. BAD! The little worms were screechy, like nails scraping a blackboard. Many of the jokes were in the trailer and so were spoiled. Other jokes were repeated, and being predictable they didn't surprise, hence they didn't work, like the alien with the regenerating head having his head blown off. As a mildly amusing way to throw away an hour and a half MIB2 is OK. But given the money and resources that were thrown at this movie, it was a shame that they didn't come up with a single memorable alien. The original was stuffed full of them.

I still like Will Smith’s acting because I just personally like him, but I sure won’t recommend this movie to anyone else.

Movie Review-The Big Lebowski/Fifth Entry

To the local Hollywood-controlled multiscreen fleapit for The Big Lebowski by the Coen Brothers. I like Coen Brothers movies, but The Big Lebowski is a bit of a disapointment. It concerns a hippy, Lebowski (the excellent Jeff Bridges) who haplessly tries to solve some pointless investigation.And when I say pointless I mean really really pointless.The Big Lebowski has nice comedy set pieces, for example a fantastic marmoset scene. But the motif of the movie was that it deliberately refused to be inspiring. Just when you thought a plot twist might occur, nothing happens.The Big Lebowski is a dumb film seeking to be clever, it is another example of Americans glorifying morons.Affecting people to covet intelligence (or even think) really is not the American Film Industry's way. However there were still some very very funny parts in the movie that my friends and I just loved so much, the scene of Jesus is one of my favourite. Tara Reid’s character in the movie is truly lame.

The Big Lebowski is a real "dude" movie. I am sure alot of guys would like it.

Movie Review-SwordFish/Fourth Entry

Swordfish is an action movie, with hacking thrown in as an interesting gimmick. A genius hacker is arrested in LA. Meanwhile, another hacker is recruited to a meeting with $100,000 bait. (Even lawyers don't get that much for a meeting - do they?). If he sniffs a rat, he is not deterred by the smell. The movie, rather needlessly, uses his daughter, not greed, as his motivation. By the way, the first hacker was called Torvald, presumably after (the much admired and liked) Linus Torvalds, inventor of the Linux operating system kernel. The second hacker was called Jobson - son of Jobs - Steve Jobs of Apple computer, geddit? These weird name references were not particularly apt, in fact they seemed downright odd and my disbelief lost its delicate suspension and crashed and burned.Now this recruited hacker, Jobson, is supposed to be the best hacker in the world. The best! And yet he was played by Hugh Jackman, a beefy action-hero-type. It is nice to see the film try to destroy the pasty kid in bedroom stereotype of a hacker - and it is true that professional hackers do not usually fit in this category - but I could not buy into Mr Jackman being a hacker, not for ten million credit card numbers.Besides, the best hacker in the world would have no difficulty in obtaining money, so he wouldn't be living in a trailer park unless he liked it. And he certainly would never get caught. (In the movie Jackman had just been released from jail for hacking offences). You never hear about the best hackers, they are invisible. So this ruined the realism of the movie somewhat for me. Having said that, Jackman is actually pretty good: he exudes this gritty look that his role ultimately requires. He may well end up as that rare thing, a likeable A-list actor. But... I didn't buy him tapping away on a laptop. It didn't feel right. He was muttering stuff about password scanners and worms but he didn't seem to have that genuine feel for his subject that an obsessive hacker (the best are obsessive, after all) would have.Travolta was OK as the baddie. But I hate to think how much his dreadful cult, scientology, made out of the movies he features in. This loonie, money-grabbing cult takes a slice of all their member's earnings, and then uses that money to sue its critics.Swordfish is still a fun movie to watch though.