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.