I was present for a chick flick last night…

I have a noted hesitancy towards “chick flicks” or “date movies”. I don’t know why. That’s a lie, I really do. In general, they are mind-numbingly formulaic and, as a result, spine-grindingly predictable. The humor usually attempts to be cute and clever, but comes across cheesy and decidedly un-clever. Additionally, there is all too often little depth to any of the characters. Also, there are rarely robots, space ships, or giant monsters.

Now, I completely understand that there are exceptions to my reservations, and I completely understand that even though some movies adhere to the above criticisms they can turn out to be entertaining. I get those things. Suffice it to say, I simply have a noted hesitancy towards films of this ilk.

In any case, with relatives from distant lands staying with my wife and family over the weekend, the opportunity arose to watch a film, and as I was the only adult male in the house, I had absolutely nothing to do with the choice. And that was fine, I truly didn’t mind. So it was that we embarked upon the journey which was The Holiday.

I won’t go into any kind of summary at this point; in fact, I have provided a handy link to IMDB for those of you with no clue what movie I’m talking about. The movie is, afterall, already more than 18 months old. Instead, I will merely detail my observations and thoughts of the film. There may be some spoiler action here, so be warned.

These items will be in order of things I think of first to things I think of afterwards. Absent from this list will be things I failed to think of or forgot to mention.

1. I’m not a fan of Cameron Diaz. I haven’t seen her in a ton of films; however, the times I’ve seen her and thought, “Hrmm…,” greatly outnumber the times I’ve said, “she didn’t look malnourished in The Mask.” Having said that, I have not been wronged by Diaz, so this is nothing personal. I have simply yet to be impressed with her in a role that I’ve seen.
2. Jack Black’s character in this movie should have been split in half, and one half should have been thrown away. Simply put, Black should never be the love interest in a movie. It’s just not the correct decision. Remove that part and leave the rest of his character, and you have a well-played, funny strength to the film.
3. Eli Wallach was the best thing about this movie.
4. Kate Winslet is a fine actress, and when she was given material to truly act out in this film, she was quite good. However, the horrible comic relief she was forced to portray in the guise of a never-ending scene of surprise and joy made me want to inhabit a tauntaun.
5. Winslet and Black demonstrated chemistry reminiscent of the chemistry between fire and hamsters. See point #2 for solution.
6. Jude Law did a fine job of acting in this film, and there were things about his character that were genuinely unpredictable and refreshing.
7. The tent scene was the best scene in this movie.
8. The whole crying thing with the character of Amanda was painfully see-through. I found myself thinking, “Is there any possible way they can stop themselves from ending with that?”
9. Rufus Sewell played the part of insanely-obvious, spontaneously-generating chick flick bad guy. Poorly.
10. This is a bit of a side note, but I just read on IMDB trivia that “This film was written specifically with actors Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, and Jack Black in mind.” If this is true, then I am even more infuriated with some of the scenes written for these actors/actresses.
11. The final dancing scene simply must be removed and injested by those responsible.

Having said all that, I was marginally entertained by parts of this film, particularly those that truly surprised me. Much, however, was as expected.

I remain hesitant towards “chick flicks” or “date movies”.

Filed under: entertainment, family, movies

Movie realizations over the past week…

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire isn’t as bad as I thought it was during my initial experience with it. True, it is riddled with things I wished they’d done differently, but I tend to enjoy it more each time I see it. On a related note, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is my favorite movie of the series. Evanna Lynch’s as Luna Lovegood is perfectly cast.

Stranger Than Fiction is quite good. I particularly enjoy that the majority of humor isn’t so in-your-face as one might expect from the protagonist, Will Ferrell.

When I first saw The Fifth Element in the movie theater, I hated it. I don’t know why, I suspect it was the same reason I hated Eddie Vedder’s voice the first time I heard it: too good to hear for the first time. In any case, the movie is outstanding.

As much as I was interested in seeing the Silver Surfer in 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer, I must say that the 20 or 30 minutes or so of the movie I was able to endure was a waste of life.

300 isn’t for the family, but despite the blood, gore, nudity, funky looking dudes, and bucket-loads of testosterone-induced screaming, it is certainly a beautifully entertaining film. It was a movie that, although I enjoyed it in the theater, I didn’t think I’d want to see many more times. I was wrong.

It’s a guilty pleasure, but Galaxy Quest is fun. I watch it. I like it.

For whatever reason, it took me a very long time to get around to watching The Green Mile, but I accept all that time as worth the price of admission. A truly great movie.

Filed under: movies

Casting Call

This is an interesting list of roles that actors/actresses have turned down. I always find these types of lists interesting. Of course, you can rarely be sure that everything in them is completely accurate, but it’s still humorous to picture some of these. Imagining John Travolta in the role the list claims he turned down is most amusing…and slightly horrifying.

When reading lists such as this one is reminded of how obviously important casting is to the success of a character and the movie as a whole. At no time is casting more important than in movies based on pre-existing stories (books, popular stories, historical events, movie-remakes, etc.) Any time a character has already been established in some way, that character’s casting becomes paramount to its success.

I’ve heard of actors being cast in a certain role and thought, “Wow, that’s a horrible choice,” many times. For instance, I thought Hugh Jackman was a horrible choice for the role of Wolverine in the X-Men films. I was quite wrong about that one. I’m currently feeling that way about a movie set to come out at the end of 2008. It is a remake of one of my favorite science fiction movies of all time, The Day the Earth Stood Still.

In the original 1951 movie, the leading man (alien, really) is played by Michael Rennie, who plays the role perfectly (in my opinion, of course). I had often thought that this movie would be a great movie to remake, as long as it was done properly and as long as Klaatu was properly cast. It has been announced that the remake scheduled to be released in December of 2008 will cast Keanu Reeves in the role of Klaatu. I hope I’m wrong about this, but I this news makes me want to lay in a bed of Mongolian Death Worms.

Filed under: entertainment, movies

New Cloverfield (1-18-08) Trailer

Empire Magazine now has the new, full, second 1-18-08 trailer exclusively. I love them with many touchy-feelings.

Watch it and adore it.

Filed under: entertainment, movies

Jumpstart the Madness

Recent posts by friends and colleagues on the their respective blogs have brought to light the fact that I haven’t done the same in quite some time. Therefore, anyone reading this will be awarded the obligatory “I haven’t posted in a while, so saying so will serve as a new post” post.

Alas, I will post at least something entertaining. I am greatly intrigued by the upcoming J.J. Abrams production with no name. It has been called Cloverfield, Slusho!, and more commonly 1-18-08, after it’s release date. In any case, if you don’t know what I’m talking about, go watch the trailer without any further delay. Failure to do so may result in many things unspeakable.

Filed under: entertainment, general, movies

Iron Man/Tony Stark Revealed

Okay, okay. I’ve questioned casting prior to a movie’s release many times before. Some times I’ve been correct to question, and other times I’ve been wrong. There are currently a couple of questionable roles I have gone public on (Matt Damon as a young Captain Kirk and Heath Ledger as the Joker, to name a couple), and I think the latest announcement will definitely make my list.

In the upcoming Iron Man feature film, Robert Downey, Jr. will be playing the role of Tony Stark, and ultimately Iron Man.

Filed under: movies

Meet the new boss…

Fortunately, same as the old boss. I am, of course, talking here about Optimus Prime. Via an interview on G4TV’s coverage of Comic-Con 2006, the producer of the new Transformers movie announced that Peter Cullen will be reprising his role as the voice of Optimus Prime.

Sweet Fancy Moses!

Filed under: movies

Rocky XXIIV

I always kind of liked the Rocky movies (at least the first four as I never got around to seeing the fifth). Rocky and Rocky II were always considered to be good films in critic circles, so I’ve never really felt weird about liking them. Rocky III and Rocky IV are certainly more guilty pleasures than anything else. Earlier in the year when I heard that Sly was making Rocky VI, I really thought he had gone around the bend. Afterall, how many times can you come up with enough surrounding story for a boxing movie? Well, I saw this trailer just now, and I have to say that it’s peaked my interest. They may be going about it the right way. You can never be sure, of course, but at least it holds a lot more promise than I had thought possible.

You can see the trailer here.

If you didn’t like any other Rocky films, I can’t imagine why you would even think about it. It’s definitely for fans of the series. But be of good cheer! If you like boxing movies, I hear that Robert De Niro is considered three sequels to Raging Bull. In the third and final installment, early word is that he’ll be fighting Abe Vigoda. Abe Vigoda and snakes.

Filed under: movies

Science Friction

I’ve always been a fan of science fiction. I remember growing up to the original Star Trek episodes, monster magazines, and old sci-fi movies. I still love them all, and generally, the older and cheesier the better. It goes without saying that when the Sci-fi channel was introduced I was ecstatic. I would be able to watch all those old television series and movies to my heart’s content.

Only different.

It seemed to start out okay, although I admit they were able to find old television shows that were so bad not even I could stomach them. But still, it was fine. I was willing to take the unwatchable as long as occassionally I could tune into “Lost in Space”, “The Incredible Hulk”, or a some Godzilla or Gamara movie.

Then they started in with a whole bunch of very, very bad original programming. Don’t get me wrong, they have on occassion hit on a good one (their remake/rework of Battlestar Galactica, for instance, is superb,) but most was to be completely avoided. I won’t get into Mansquito.

But now, they’ve hit bottom. I don’t even think I can go into how ridiculous it is for the Sci-fi channel to jump headlong into such misplaced programming. I’ll just let you see for yourself. Science fiction, where have you gone?

Filed under: movies, television

Top ten Superhero films

10. Batman
9. Superman Returns
8. X3 (X-Men 3)
7. X-Men
6. Superman
5. X2 (X-Men 2)
4. Spider-man
3. Batman Begins
2. The Incredibles
1. Spider-man II

sh4wn and I decided to post our lists together. See what his list looks like. As with sh4wn’s list, the criteria remains the same. I’m pretty sure he explained it well, so I won’t bother.

I have to say that this was a very difficult list to compile. Once I got the movies down I wanted to try to rank, it got even more difficult. I must say that some of these movies made it on the list due to nostalgia (Superman was my favorite movie as a kid, but these days Margot Kidder is painful to watch), and there a couple of others I had hoped would have made it (The Hulk and Superman II were close, and I really tried to get Mystery Men on here).

In any case, this list is as it is for now. As I see some older movies I missed, the list may change. I’m pretty sure that time will change the list as well. Let’s also not forget that there are some strong choices coming out in the next couple of years. And here’s to hoping they’ll get around to putting Green Lantern on the screen.

Filed under: movies, top ten lists