Fall 2005

And so now we’ve reached the month of October, which in the spirit of Halloween is generally chock full of horror movies (a trend that is still going strong, much to my enjoyment). The first such film to come out last fall was The Fog, a remake of one of John Carpenter’s early films. I hadn’t seen the original The Fog in I don't know how long, so I broke down and bought it on DVD before the remake came out (mainly because it was pretty cheap, and if I remember correctly, included a movie pass so I could see the new one for free; definitely incentive to go see the remake – that and getting to see Maggie Grace in her undies. God, what a hottie!!). Neither movie is what you’d call a classic piece of cinema, but the original was a lot of fun to watch (but then again, I’m a really big fan of John Carpenter). As far as the remake goes, it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t exactly great, either. If you catch it on a movie channel, it’s worth taking the time to watch, but I don’t know that I’d spend the money to rent it.

The next October film that I saw was the video game movie Doom (which is also a horror film of sorts, so certainly appropriate for the month). When I first started seeing trailers and reading write-ups on this movie, I was very hesitant about it, for two reasons – firstly, I thought it was being directed by Uwe Boll (who seems to pretty much direct nothing but video game movies), who’s early movies House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark were both mediocre at best. But I guess someone likes his stuff, because he’s got a whole stack of movies lined up that he’s directing, ALL based on videogames (and I do have to say I was actually impressed with BloodRayne, the last movie he did – his directing skills do seem to be improving – guess I'll have to wait and see what I think of his next film or two). The other concern I had was the talk about how they were shooting 1st person perspective scenes to make the movie look just like if you were playing the video game (which seemed like a bad idea that could become really stupid, really quickly).

Well, it turned out that both my concerns were unfounded. First off, the movie was actually directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak, director of DMX’s big action movies – Romeo Must Die, Exit Wounds, and Cradle 2 the Grave – all of which I thoroughly enjoyed (he was also cinematographer on all sorts of great movies). And as far as the 1st person perspective goes, it was limited to one extended scene (as opposed to scattered throughout the movie like I’d feared it would be), and surprisingly enough, was actually done very well. Now don’t get me wrong, the movie was still pretty much just another video game movie (certainly not in the league of Resident Evil or Mortal Kombat), but at the same time it was no Alone in the Dark or Super Mario Bros. or Double Dragon or Street Fighter (the Japanese anime of this is SO much better than the lame live action version starring Jean-Claude Van Damme). The list goes on and on (it’s amazing how many really, really bad video game adaptations there are out there – it's a wonder that they keep making them).

The Rock does a passable job (though not his best performance by any means), and Karl Urban is great like always (I hope to see him in many more movies, so I was very pleased to see that it's got two movies coming out this year). All in all it wasn’t too bad a movie. Nothing spectacular, and I’m in no hurry at all to pick it up on DVD, but I am glad that I saw it at the theater. It could have been a lot worse, that’s for sure.

The final movie of October that I saw was the very non-horror movie The Legend of Zorro. If I wasn’t so far behind in my entries I might take the time to talk about this one in a little more depth, but as it is I think I’ll just give it a quick once over. It wasn’t bad, and I’m glad I went and saw it (if for no other reason than because Catherine Zeta-Jones is just so damned beautiful and fun to watch), but the original was a hell of a lot better (I think the sequel really suffered from the lack of Anthony Hopkins, for one, and for another the script was just really weak, especially when compared to the first film). I’ll probably pick it up on DVD eventually just because I’ve got the first one, but it’s not one I’m in a hurry to get.

Which takes us right on into November, and the beginning of the holiday season! The first movie I saw in November (believe it or not) was the animated family film Chicken Little (I went with some friends who have a couple of little kids – that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!). Surprisingly, this was actually a really cute film, much better than I expected. I was a little surprised at how badly the critics hammered the movie, but only a little (we all know how clueless the critics are when it comes to reviewing anything not vying for Oscar attention). I was also very surprised when I looked up the movie on imdb to discover that the voice of Chicken Little was done by Zack Braff from Scrubs (a very talented and funny actor). I highly recommend this one to anyone with kids.

The next weekend another family movie came out – Zathura. It’s one I thought about seeing (since I really like Jumanji), but just never got around to it. It’s out on DVD now, so I’ll hopefully I’ll catch it on one of the movie channels here soon. But considering the lukewarm reviews it got, I’m not in too big of a hurry.

The last film I saw in November was the first of the big holiday releases for 2005 – Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. And I have to say, this film completely redeems the series after the fiasco that was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (I guess it just goes to show what a difference it makes when you have a British director in charge of a movie based on a British story – not to mention how much of an improvement the script was over the third film). Maybe it’s just because it’s been longer since I read the stories than when I watched the third movie (although I am re-reading the books now), but I didn’t notice nearly as much missing from the fourth movie as the third. But then again, the third movie had so many glaring holes and so much important information missing that it was downright disgusting.

The critics for the most part are calling it the best of the series, but then again, they were saying the same damned things about the previous one, which was far and away the WORST of the series. One critic (and I won't name names) actually had the audacity to say that this one wasn't any better than the third one. Yeah, right! This would be why I generally pay no attention to movie critics – more times than not their reviews are simply proof that they have no clue what they're talking about.

But back to the subject at hand. Harry Potter 4 was just incredible. I saw it at the theatre twice, and wanted to see it again, but there were too many other movies coming out that I needed to see. The visual effects are stunning as usual, but unlike the previous film, the director isn’t so focused on the special effects that they negatively overshadow the story (in case you haven’t figured it out yet, I REALLY didn’t like Harry Potter 3 – I do own it on DVD, just to keep the series complete, but I was really, really disappointed with how it turned out). Watching the actors and characters mature has been very enjoyable, and the filmmakers did a great job with this one in showing the characters’ struggles as they enter adolescence. And considering how long the fourth book is, they did a spectacular job of streamlining the story to fit into a single film, without sacrificing the essential aspects of the book. I had originally figured they’d have to do this book (and the next one) as two movies in order to possibly get everything in that they’d need, but they did a surprisingly good job of condensing it into one film. Let’s just hope the fifth movie does as good a job with what is by far the longest book in the series.

Well, that about does it for fall of 2005, so I think I’ll call this entry complete. Next up will be December, and the big holiday blockbusters of 2005.

Finally finished with September! :-|

Okay, so more and more it’s looking like I’m not likely to ever get caught up with my entries, so it’s time to jump forward and get current. So instead of reviewing all the movies I’ve seen September – January, I’m just going to hit the big movies of the last several months that impressed me enough to comment on them. Along the way I may just touch on other movies (enough to say that I watched them and whether I liked them or not), but that’s about it. So on with the show!

September brought quite a few movies that I didn’t get around to seeing, and several that were disappointing. However, the end of the month brought one of my absolute favorite movies of the year – Serenity. So here’s a quick rundown of the rest of the month:

Transporter 2 – You just gotta love Jason Statham. He is such a kick ass action star. He is so much more fun to watch than Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Steven Seagal. His martial arts style is amazing to watch. Sadly this movie is a little too over the top in spots, and so it’s not as good as the original, but it’s still really fun. Great popcorn movie.

Into the Blue – Jessica Alba looking amazingly sexy in a bikini for an hour and a half. What more needs to be said?

Flightplan – Much as I like Jodi Foster as an actress, this was a very mediocre and predictable film. I wasn’t impressed with this one at all. Panic Room was so much better.

A History of Violence – It stuns me that this film is not only receiving award nominations, but actually winning awards (mostly in Canada, where the director is from – go figure)! This movie was such a disappointment. I’m as big a fan of sex and violence in movies as anyone, but this movie is the definition of “gratuitous.” Okay, so maybe the director was trying to make a statement about the gratuitous sex and violence that’s rampant in our entertainment and our society (that’s what all those idiotic movie critics out there seemed to think). If so, his big, bold statement was lost on me. All I saw was a movie filled with sex, nudity, and violent murder strictly for their own sake. But my bigger complaint goes to story. Being a writer of sorts, I love a good story. As a wannabe filmmaker, I also understand the nature of a good film script – keep the story moving forward, keep the pace steady. Here we have a movie that’s only 96 minutes long (so there’s not much story there to begin with), and yet I repeatedly saw scenes that in my mind had no point being in the movie. They were extraneous distractions that could have easily been removed with no negative impact on the story flow at all. Which leaves you with probably less than an hour of actual relevant scenes. I’m sorry, but if I’m looking for an hour’s worth of nudity and mob violence, I can watch an episode of The Sopranos – and I’m pretty much guaranteed a hell of a lot better story than what I saw in A History of Violence. So my recommendation – if you haven’t seen it yet, don’t waste your time.

Which brings me to the climax of September, the best science fiction movie of 2005 (and easily one of the best overall movies of 2005) – Serenity!! Now, I do have to make one admission – this movie is very much the end cap to the series Firefly, and if you haven’t seen the TV show, then you’re not going to enjoy the movie as much. From an objective perspective (well, as much as I can be objective, considering that I’m a HUGE fan of the show), I would have to say that as a general sci-fi movie, just on it’s own, Serenity is only a pretty good movie (but still very worth seeing). It only becomes a truly great movie when you factor in the character and story development from the series that preceded it. As the theatrical finale to the show, the movie truly shines.

This is probably not going to surprise anyone, but I just can’t help myself – I have to compare Serenity with the other two big sci-fi films that were released this summer: Star Wars Episode III and War of the Worlds (and I have to smile and say that for once the critics and I agree – they also generally feel that Serenity is the better movie over Episode III, and that George Lucas could learn a thing or two from Joss Whedon). Primarily because of who was involved in the making those other two movies (at least as far as I’m concerned), both of them did blockbuster numbers and were huge successes at the box office, while Serenity was a disappointment, to say the least. Which is a shame considering that the first of those other two movies was bad, while the other was downright horrible (I’ve actually read reviews talking about how good War of the Worlds was, which just floors me – what the hell movie were THEY watching?! Obviously there are a few critics out there that figure Steven Spielberg and/or Tom Cruise can do no wrong. Well, sadly they are seriously mistaken). While Serenity had neither the big budget nor massive fan base of the other two movies, it had one thing going for it in spades that the other two films were completely lacking in – a well written script with great dialogue (I’m sorry, but some of the dialogue in Episode III was just painful, and the weak performances that delivered said dialogue certainly didn’t help). Whatever else you may say about Joss Whedon, he is above all the master of fun, engaging, memorable dialogue.

The visual effects aren’t nearly as high-end as those in Star Wars (or War of the Worlds, as far as that goes), but they do justice to the story, which is what really counts, since that’s what they’re there for (George Lucas has a weakness for getting overly focused on the visual effects that I feel hurts his films – a habit that sadly it seems Peter Jackson is developing, but I’ll go more into that once I get to my King Kong review). It’s nice to see the occasional sci-fi movie that has a more lo-tech feel to its technology, as opposed to the shiny, glossy, super-sophisticated hi-tech that’s so common in most science fiction (this was one of the things I loved about Wing Commander, a very highly underrated sci-fi movie in my opinion).

Joss Whedon is just such a master storyteller. His characters have depth and personality, his stories are well thought out, and he combines drama and humor and action and emotional depth together into a compelling tapestry probably better than any writer/director I’ve seen (although I’m sure there are plenty of independent filmmakers out there that are as good; sadly I just seem to watch a lot more Hollywood films than independent films, and I don’t think I’ll get much argument from people about Hollywood’s serious lack of creativity and storytelling ability these days. I mean, my God, just how many sequels, remakes, and movie versions of TV shows can they pump out?).

Well, I think that’s about it. I think I’ve written enough to make it pretty obvious how I feel about Serenity. Bottom line – if you’re a fan of the show, this is a must-see movie without question. If you’re not, but you like well-written, well-acted sci-fi, then this movie is still worth checking out (but maybe not must-see). Of course, if you haven’t seen the original show, I highly recommend it. It is just a fantastic series (it’s just a shame that it aired on Fox, who completely bungled it from word go – not airing the episodes in order, putting it in a lousy time slot, basically giving it no support whatsoever. But that’s a totally different discussion that I could go on about at length, so I’ll just stop now). So until next time (and God knows when that’ll be), take life easy, and make sure to support your local Cineplex.