Sigh- It’s been a while blog world. I have some down time, so its time for. . . MASSIVE DUMP! A few movies to mini-review, a few other orders of buisness.
Sweeny Toddy: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street:
Wow- dark dark dark movie, and a bit of comedy. I tend to like movies like that, and I liked this one. This film is Tim Burton at his greatest. There is darkness all over the place, which makes great sets, great makeup, great costumes. This is a musical (cut shorter than the play, which we lose out on a lot of great music) and a lot of the songs are just beautiful, some are haunting. There is a pure love portrayal. Everything Burton excels at. The blood is the only thing that stands out. The world is a very de-saturated, dark, grey world, and the blood is bright and colorful. There is a tripy day dream sequence, where there is actually color on the screen and its so jarring. If you are squeamish there are parts to close your eyes during (the sound effects are worse than the visuals for me though), there are pretty depressing themes: all of mankind is evil and deserves to die the death, no one is innocent, very pessimistic view.
(btw- seeing Snape and Jonny Depp singing a duet was amazing)
Spiderwick Chronicles: I was excited to see this, must have missed it because I caught it again in the dollar theater, it was AMAZING. I loved this movie. It incorporates the fantasy into the reality better than any other movie I’ve seen. It has great messages in it, has real life characters. Freddie Highmore plays twins (main characters) and it was great. There was a little bit of unproductive resentment at the end toward a separated parent, but he’s just a kid, he’ll learn as he grows up. I highly recommend this movie, even if the boss gets owned by special circumstance, loop-hole-ish means.
Juno: By all means should have won best picture. No- I haven’t seen the other two that were nominated, but Juno still should have won. Its about something that I (don’t think) haven’t seen before, a pregnant teen dealing with her issues, the father and his issues, the family’s issues, the adopting parents issues. Its so good all around, maybe I just love movies that openly deal with issues in a real life way. Watching it, you really fall in love with Juno, she is a lovable character, which makes the whole movie into a comedy and a very enjoyable experience. I recommend this movie highly as well.
Charlie Bartlet: This movie deals with real issues too, in a very real life way, which means I like it off the bat. It’s a comedy and high school drama. Charlie plays a counselor, which I can somewhat identify with, and that was fun. It theorizes a lot about dealing with problems and the point of high school, which this film says is to be popular and well liked. The portrayal of family in this film is excellent showing the good and the bad and the ideal. I’ve only seen it once, I’d have to rewatch it before I give my recommendation.
Horton Hears a Who: I was extremely hesitant going into this, extremely. I have not been impressed by so many of the Dr. Seuss films. As kids, we all had this book memorized, and watched the cartoon a lot. The film does take quite a few liberties, but I really loved this film, granted my expectation was very low, which may have something to do with it. The whole “a person’s a person no matter how small” was interpreted to mean different labels of people- if you are the mayor type, or nerdy, or creative, leader, follower, emo, you name it. The all have the same weight and merit. Very worth seeing. How ever depending on who watches it, you may have to talk about religion. The film isn’t anti-religion per se, but it can certainly come across as such, and that should be addressed. Its so blatant that its hard to miss.
Jumpers: The people I watched this one with hated the movie, I loved the movie. This concept of being able to teleport around (with rules and constraints and stuff) made the most amazing fight scenes I can think of right now. Christensen was great as a lead. Samuel Jackson was great (he is given a lot of crummy roles to play- his character isn’t that great, but he does each one so well). It incorporated Jumper lore into the history of the world, which I liked and it blew up a personal struggle into a long generational war. You may not like it (the plot could use a bit of work), (especially the ending scene) but I still give it my recommendation.
Reading through digg on bloglines, I came across the most interesting article I've read in a long long time. Not only did it keep my attention (hard to do sometimes), but really really made me think about stuff. Here is the link. Wow- I thought I had thing pretty figured out, but this raised so many questions for me that I just don't know about. I have a ton of respect for this Author (MATTATHIAS SCHWARTZ). It is a bit of a read, but I strongly recomend it. Also - I want to discuss this with some people, so either leave comments here, or call me (for those of you with my number).
