Category: 3.5 stars
Zathura
Rating: 
Zathura is a kid’s adventure movie, almost identical in concept to Jumanji. Danny finds an old board game called Zathura in the basement of his father’s brand new house. He’s bored and wants his brother to play with him, so he unknowingly starts the game. A card is spit out when it’s your turn and whatever the card indicates happens in real life. Danny and his brother find themselves in the middle of space, travelling to Zathura and unable to stop the game in progress.
I would have loved this movie as a kid. Unfortunately I can no longer classify myself in such a manner, however, so a few things about this movie left a bad taste in my mouth. The plot twist they tried to throw with The Astronaut was extremely transparent. The children were at times so stupid their hesitation to do relatively easy things had to be written into the script as a way to draw out the length of the film. Finally, the 6 year old playing Danny was extremely annoying. I’m not sure if his character was intentionally supposed to be annoying, but I could barely listen to him argue with his brother with his huge bulging eyes.
Overall, this was much better than I expected. I’d happily watch it again.
Elektra
Rating: I’m not big on comic books, though I do enjoy a good comic book movie, as long as the plot and characters are explained enough that I don’t need to know the comic itself. It’d been a long time since I’d seen Daredevil, which I felt was a sub-par movie to begin with, so I really didn’t remember this Elektra chick or what her deal was. That was my biggest problem throughout the movie. I didn’t really know what was going on with the main character. Aside from a few flashbacks which only spawn more questions than resolutions, the movie didn’t do a good job of informing me of her backstory, either.
I get the fact that Elektra is some ninja killing machine. She’s sent on a mission and told she’ll be contacted in a few days with her targets. While she has down time, she happens to get close to a man and his daughter, who live next door. And of course, she finds out that they are her targets.
It was a cool movie despite the fact that I couldn’t really follow what was going on. I have no inclination or care to find out more about the world of Elektra, but if I did, I’m sure I would have enjoyed this a lot more. This movie got an exceptionally high rating for me considering I could only barely follow along with the plot.
Corpse Bride
Rating: Victor and Victoria are part of an arranged marriage and their wedding is approaching. At the rehearsal, Victor can’t nail his lines, so the priest sends him away to learn them. Strolling through the woods at night, he practices his vows, recites them perfectly, and places the ring on a twig. Except, of course, it isn’t a twig, it’s the finger of a dead bride-to-be. Victor finds himself married to a corpse and is drawn into her world of the dead, which is far livelier and more colorful than the drab world of the living he comes from.
This was a beautiful movie. The world of the living is very drab, with few colors and nothing fun going on. The world of the dead is filled with fun characters, gorgeous colors, and lots of great music. The story itself is no surprise, but there are several unexpected and funny moments. This one may not be worth renting for the plot, but the claymation, colors and music more than make up for its other shortcomings.
Cove, The
Posted on 11.27.05 | (0) Comment | 2288 views
Rating: I got this book a long time ago from PaperBackSwap and having no recollection what it was about, I put it in my bag as an option to read while I was in Texas. As it turned out, I read frequently when I was in Texas. I really miss reading a couple books a week and hope this will kick-start me on reading again.
The Cove is a small town Sally escapes to after the murder of her father. She doesn’t remember what happened that night, but she very well may have killed him. Or perhaps her mother killed him. Either way, both she and her mother are safest if Sally runs away. At least that’s what she thinks. An FBI agent named James Quinlan easily tracks down Sally and begins to work his magic on her trying to put together the pieces of the puzzle leading up to her father’s murder. In the meantime, strange things happen in The Cove which can’t easily be explained and James finds he has another mystery on his hands.
My description probably sounds boring, but this book was anything but. The pace is quick, which I’ve discovered I prefer in books. The mysteries are plentiful and kept me guessing. Sometimes I had aspects of it figured out and other times I was shocked to discover the truth. Overall, it was a pretty good suspense book with a little romance thrown in for good measure.
Next Stop Wonderland
Rating: I haven’t written a movie review in months despite having seen many. My apologies, mostly to myself because I’m really, really anal about keeping track of things such as this.
This is a Miramax film with an independent sort of feel to it. There also didn’t appear to be much point to it. Two people’s lives intersect over and over again without them ever meeting. It had a Sliding Doors / Sleepless in Seattle sort of feel to it. It was funny and smart and definitely worth seeing if you have a Sunday afternoon to waste, but I completely understand why I’d never heard of this movie before.
Hitch
Rating: This was an extremely cute movie with Will Smith and Kevin James, two actors I never thought I’d see together. Will Smith’s character, Hitch, is a self proclaimed dating doctor and claims he only needs three dates to make a woman fall in love with you. The catch is that he’ll only work with you if you truly love the woman. While helping Kevin James’ character attract a high profile woman, Hitch finds a love interest of his own.
I thought more of the movie would be focused on how Hitch just can’t function when he’s on a date, but that’s not really the case since he’s fairly smooth through all the rough spots. The ending seemed extremely rushed and a little unbelievable to me. I was still hating Hitch’s love interest at a time when I shouldn’t.
I liked the first part of this movie quite a bit. I would love if they did a sequel of some sort.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Rating: I’m just not sure what to think about this movie. It was very much the same and yet vastly different from the 1971 Gene Wilder version. I think I’m going to have to read the book (which I did in the 7th grade for a play, but seem to remember nothing about it) to see which one is closer.
Others have written wonderful and detailed reviews, so I’m not even going to attempt it. If you’ve seen the 1971 version (who HASN’T!?) then you might be shocked by the following changes:
- Johnny Depp’s Willy Wonka is nothing like Gene Wilder’s Willy Wonka. Absolutely nothing. I can’t really say which I prefer since they both played the characters so very differently. They definitely both played their parts well. I do admire Johnny Depp for delving into his character a bit more.
- Willy Wonka has a bit of a back story. We find out why he’s in love with candy and why he doesn’t really care for children or families.
- Oompa Loompas also have a back story and you can tell they’re much more involved in running the factory. In the 1971 version, Willy was obviously in charge of the Oompa Loompas and the factory. In this story, it almost seems as if the Oompa Loompas are taking care of the factory so Willy can have fun, play around and invent new stuff without having to worry about what it actually takes to run a factory.
- Scary and unrealistic looking Oompa Loompas. They all have the same face. It is very, painfully apparent that there were special effects involved to do this. I thought the oompa loompa heads looked very cut-and-pasted.
There are definitely more changes, one other huge one in particular that I won’t go into.
I’m still not sure how I feel about this movie. All the individual parts - scenery, acting, directing, music, etc - were wonderful in and of themselves. Putting them all together though.. something just didn’t seem right about it all. I think it was a lot closer to the 1971 movie than I was expecting and therefore I felt bored through most of it.
Shaolin Soccer
Rating: Mark borrowed this movie from one of his friends months ago and we just recently got around to watching it. We tried to watch it in Cantonese first, with subtitles, but the subtitles were going so fast that we just couldn’t keep up, let alone read the subtitles and watch the movie. So we switched to dubbed English, which wasn’t really that bad.
The plot is basically about a bum who was trained along with his brothers by a master of Shaolin and feels compelled to use this knowledge somehow in his life, to make a living. He comes across an old soccer player who was put to rest in his prime by an angry mob and who’s been working for his arch rival for the past 20 years. He was hoping to get a coaching position, but his rival laughed in his face. He comes across the bum and realizes his talent can be applied to soccer. The bum convinces his very different brothers that this is how they need to use their training, so they form a soccer team and enter a tournament which is won every year by the rival’s bizarre team.
I’ve never seen people play soccer like this. It was wild! The movie was very funny, although I just didn’t understand certain things. For instance, the bum (sorry, I remember no one’s name in this) meets a girl along the way who has a horribly mutilated face. I’m not sure what’s wrong with it. Through the course of the movie, her face becomes completely clear. It’s never explained what the hell happened or what transformed her face. I’m guessing one of two things. Either her face looked like that because she was alone and transformed the more she fell in love, or her face looked the same all along and we were seeing her face transform into what the bum was seeing the more he fell in love with her.
All in all, definitely worth a watch!
National Treasure
Rating: After reading The DaVinci Code, I’ve been very interested in secret societies and their place in forming this country. National Treasure sort of takes this to a new level though. Not only were founders of our country and other important men throughout history a part of the Freemasons, an organization frequently associated with authoritative and secretive actions, but they also have a treasure so vast they trusted no single human being with it. This treasure is almost lost to us, but don’t lose hope - a map leading to it is written in invisible ink on the back of the Declaration of Independance!
This was a fun movie to watch, but you can’t take even a word of it seriously. It’s no surprise this movie didn’t do very well in the theatres. It’s rather shallow and one-dimensional with no interesting subplots other than a ridiculously predictable romance involving Nicholas Cage. Why must there always be a romance?
Although this was by no means great cinema, I had a lot of fun watching it. You might want to wait for cable, but it’s perfect for that Sunday afternoon you’re bored with nothing else to do.
Chasing Liberty
Rating: Every once in a while you’ll sit down to watch a movie knowing you’ll barely like it and it completely exceeds your expectations.
Although I feel like I’ve seen this movie before, I thought it was original in its own way and very funny.
The first daughter is 18 and wants a taste of freedom. She’s tired of being followed around by secret service agents and never having a moment to herself. In a world where she’s never alone, she’s ridiculously lonely.
She finally finds a small slice of freedom and falls in love, but at what cost?
The plot is overdone, but the characters and dialogue are extremely refreshing. I was introduced to the term “chicky buffer” which allows one man to hug another as long as a female is also present in the hug.
If you like romantic comedies, check it out!
After the Sunset
Rating: For some reason I feel like I’d seen this movie before (I hadn’t) because it was somewhat predictable and cliche. Despite that, the comedy was fabulous and the beautiful Salma Hayek was even more fabulous in her skimpy outfits. While I thought I had the ending all figured out, it did throw me for a loop.
This is a simple movie about an FBI agent and the jewel theif who always manages to escape him. If you liked Ocean’s Eleven, The Italian Job or The Thomas Crown Affair, you’ll probably like this movie just as much.
If you own or rent the DVD, be sure to check out the visual effects segment in the bonus features. They show you how they “Photoshop” the movie to make it look so good. It was very cool!
According to Spencer
Rating: Spencer’s grandmother said, “Life is short. Make it as deep and wide as you possibly can.” She was a spunky woman, full of life and she never let anything stand in the way of her dreams. When she died, Spencer (Jesse Bradford) realized he was playing it safe and not living life with nearly as much spirit as she did. So he set off to California! He finally found two guys (Adam Goldberg and David Krumholz) who were willing to rent him a room without him having any credit history. Of course, these guys were filming a porn movie and would need Spencer’s bedroom during the day. Finally, Spencer runs into an old crush from elementary school, Malora (Mia Kirshner) who doesn’t remember him but who he’s still in love with.
Oddly enough, I’ve only described the first 15 minutes of the movie. The main plot may be outplayed and predictable, but the characters are quirky and with exception of Melora, very well developed (I found her character to be rather one dimensional and shallow). David Krumholz and Adam Goldberg are hilarious together.
I’d never heard of this movie before, but we stumbled across it coming up on cable. I knew I recognized Jesse Bradford’s name and when I went to look it up on IMDB, I instantly realized he was in Bring it On! When I learned David Krumholz (from CBS’s Numb3rs) was in it, the deal was closed and I had to watch it. I’m glad I did! It was a very funny, light-hearted romantic comedy. It didn’t do very well critically, but I’d say give it a shot! Especially if you like any of the main actors.
First Daughter
Rating: Katie Holmes usually does movies I just don’t like (Disturbing Behavior, Teaching Mrs. Tingle and Photo Booth just to name a few), but I enjoyed her character on Dawson’s Creek so much I can’t stay away from her movies. I also seem to love movies revolving around the President of the United States’ personal life, such as The American President. Michael Keaton played a small, but well done role of the president who has a teenage daughter named Samantha going off to college as a freshman. Samantha just wants a normal college experience filled with friends and parties and fun, nothing too outrageous. Unfortunately as the president’s daughter, she’s met with excessive security, no allowance for having fun since it might make the president look bad and she’s badgered with reporters at every turn wanting to engage in political debates.
I thought this was a fun, cute movie and Katie Holmes was perfect for it.
Little Black Book
Rating: This movie turned me back onto Carly Simon who I really haven’t listened to very much since I was a small child and only listened to music my mommy listened to. The “revelation” scene toward the end with Holly Hunter… although I’d never seen this movie before, I got a strong feeling like I had seen that scene before. I’m not sure whether it’s just a rip off of some other movie.
Sleepover
Rating: Is it sad that I’m almost 26 and I liked this movie?
A group of somewhat unpopular girls have a sleepover. A bitch breaks into the party and proposes a scavenger hunt. The winner gets to claim the “cool spot” to eat lunch the following school year. The rest of the movie is spent showing everyone trying to obtain the items off the hunt list.
I mean, it wasn’t the best movie ever, but it gave me a few laughs. Especially that rent-a-cop. It’s a good thing I didn’t watch the theatrical preview because just about every good, funny part of the movie is in the trailer and I likely would have been far less entertained by it.
