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Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)
Disappointment
So, Snow White has been given the Lord of the Rings treatment in a big budget Universal film. Unfortunately, the movie isn't half as good as the trailer was.
Charlize Theron as the evil Queen Ravena is great and holds the movie together. Unfortunately she tends to disappear for long stretches of time.
Chris Hemsworth as The Hunstman has charisma to spare. Ever since seeing him as doomed Starfleet commander at the beginning of the Star Trek reboot, I knew this guy was going to be a movie star.
Kristen Stewart as Snow White has few duties in this movie except to wander about with slack-jawed confusion. Kristen Stewart is capable of handling this, but she has no charisma. The entire movie I'd rather be watching the evil Queen Ravena, or The Huntsman, or the CGI fairies, or the giant deer, anything. Imagine this movie with Natalie Portman as Snow White, instead. It's a better movie already isn't it?
The camera-work is awful - shaky camera-work infuriates me deeply. Hollywood needs to bull-whip every director who even thinks of shaking their camera during anything but a crash or an explosion (and hopefully not even then). I got a headache watching the drunken Huntsman fight because the camera was being held by an epileptic monkey. This is inexcusable.
Ironically, though, while the camera-work sucks, the film has beautiful production design from costumes to CGI to sets to location work to lighting. The look of the dark forest was especially good.
Too bad it mostly doesn't mean anything. Snow White is so fair she can tame wild beats...or something. The movie never explains how any of this makes sense. She calms with wild beast through the intensity of her slack-jawed confusion, I guess.
The movie falls apart though, mainly because there are too many characters and too little time. Peter Jackson is going to have to juggle more characters than this with The Hobbit, but I can guarantee I'll know the character names before the movie's over because they are going to be more than background filler.
After a week of thinking, I still can't quite figure out what the character of William (or the dwarfs for that matter) were supposed to accomplish in this story. What would have been lost, exactly, by cutting William completely and folding some of him into The Huntsman? Nothing that I can think of. There isn't enough story here to carry a love triangle.
I know its sacrilege to have Snow White without the dwarfs, but they aren't really given much to do and the story would have been better served on the actual title characters, Snow White and The Huntsman. Here's what the movie should have been: Snow White and the Huntsman on the run from bad guys. Instead the movie is larded up with a bunch of useless side characters.
Despite all the problems, this movie has the potential for a decent sequel. Snow White is on the throne and might actually have something to do there. The Huntsman can be turned loose to snap necks and the dwarfs can be given the time to do whatever is they do. Hopefully they kill off William for the sequel (if he didn't die already, I don't remember.)
Red Tails (2012)
Major Disappointment
Red Tails feels like made for TV movie that they decided to throw $50 million dollars in CGI at after the fact. Sorry. I wanted it to succeed. It's not my fault the movie is a mess. They never figured out whether they wanted to make a social issue drama or an action film. They could have done both, but they ended up doing neither.
The movie falls apart for a couple of main reasons.
One, the Red Tails want to be treated equally and given a chance to show their skill. Fine. Great. But that can't be the ENTIRE plot of the film. This should have been a Men on a Mission movie, like countless other WWII movie ever made. If they wanted to use the bombing run to Berlin as that mission, fine. The only difference is the main cast is black.
Furthermore, we don't even know if the bombing run was ever successful because they don't show it. German tank factory getting bombed. Need that scene.
Two, apparently actors on a green-screen sound stage don't experience G forces and were never instructed to try to fake it.
Three, the dialogue of almost all the white characters is atrocious, but the dialogue of the white pilots while in midair is especially egregious. Worst line readings I think I've ever heard in a theatrical film.
Four, scenes of stuff blowing up just to have scenes of stuff blowing up. Was the scene of them blowing up a train necessary? No. In fact it was counter-productive, because in the next scene or two, they complain about never getting to do anything. I think blowing up a train is pretty damn important.
Continuing with number four, what purpose did showing one fighter plane blowing up a battleship accomplish? At least the assault on the air strip made sense as part of the story, but the battleship just seemed so random like they needed to shoehorn another action scene in there.
Five, the POW scenes. Those scenes didn't belong in this movie. Odd, out of place diversion. Never should have been there, never should have been filmed.
Six, the canteen scene where the white pilots buy drinks for the Red Tails. Great scene, very touching, but directed and edited by a moron. They have a wide shot for the entire scene so you can't actually tell what the reaction of the Red Tails are as the white guys are giving them all handshakes. This is so supposed to be the breakthrough scene where they are finally accepted as "one of the team". It could've been handled so much better without changing a single line of dialogue.
I personally would have left this scene to close the movie with.
Three word summary of the film: Well-intentioned, but inept.
Sucker Punch (2011)
Misconceived
Baby doll gets set to an insane asylum for accidentally killing her sister when she meant to kill her abusive stepfather. The rest of the movie is a prolonged fantasy as she tries to escape the asylum before she is lobotomized.
There is no delicate way to put this, this movie completely fails and its entirely at the feet of Zack Snyder.
Simply put the dream sequences are stupid and considering 95% of the movie is a fantasy, that gives you maybe ten minutes of usable movie, but even that is tainted by pointless CGI and directed like a music video.
Imagine Shutter Island, now remove the suspense, and add CGI ninjas, dragons, helicopters, and zombie Nazis and you have Sucker Punch. I literally fast-forwarded through one of the action sequences set on a train. Oh, that had robots. Add that to the list of unnecessary CGI filler that this movie could have done without.
The most galling part about the dream sequences is the shear absurdity of them. I believe this movie is a period piece, set in the 1960s, yet we have a 20 year old woman dreaming of 21rst century technology, like digital displays on the mech and helicopter. The fantasies in the movie are not the fantasies of the character Baby Doll like the movie would have us believe, they are the fantasies of the director Zack Snyder. I did not believe for one second that Baby Doll would even have these fantasies.
If the main character had been male and the movie had been set today, the fantasies would have still be unnecessary, pointless filer, but at least I could have believed the were fantasies of the main character. As it stands...garbage.
This movie will never hold a candle to Shutter Island. If you ever feel the need to watch Sucker Punch, stick two TVs next to each other and watch Shutter Island and Chicago at the same time.
John Rabe (2009)
Well Acted, but pulls punches
The film John Rabe is movie about two things, both interesting, both unknown, and both controversial: the "good" Nazi, and the Rape of Nanking. There have only been a few films about "good" Nazis that I know of, although I'm sure there are others I'm missing, this film, Seven Years in Tibet, and the 49th Parallel. This alone makes this film interesting.
But John Rabe (the film) is also about the Rape of Nanking, the atrocities committed by the Japanese military to the Chinese people in the city of Nanking. This also would be enough to make this movie interesting.
So we have a movie with two interesting topics, but ultimately fails as a compelling work. Why? The director pulled far too many punches in regards to the violence of Nanking. Maybe I'm a little hardened by watching films, but there was nothing about this movie that jumped out at me and drove home the lawlessness and violence of the Japanese occupation of Nanking. There is no way to show this and be discreet. The middle of the film was crying for a lurid montage of gang rapes, flies on corpses, and the worst depravities you can think of. John Rabe's own diaries describe many of these, you wouldn't have even had to think up any of your own and you could have had his character narrated the whole thing.
The film fails in depicting the Rape of Nanking, but it also fails in depicting the good Nazi too. The movie needed a moment, several years later, with John Rabe confronting the Nazi atrocities in WWII and comparing them with the Japanese atrocities in Nanking. We need to see him understand what his own people have done and what his membership in the Nazi party truly means as a stain on his character. We needed to see him understand that and tear up his membership card or something. We, however, do not and the movie is much the poorer because of it.
Despite this, the movie is still beautifully shot, with good production value, limited but effective CGI, and wonderfully acted. The movie is ultimately frustratingly incomplete and is not the best that could have been done with the material, but it was enjoyable while it lasted.
The Big Boodle (1957)
Sad, Sad late Errol Flynn movie
In his prime, Errol Flynn was one of the most charismatic men to ever grace the silver screen.
This movie was not made in his prime. If you watch this film, having never seen The Adventures of Robin Hood, Captain Blood, or any of his other films pre-1950, you might find something to like here. The shots of pre-Castro Cuba are interesting if for no other reason, historical value.
If, however, you've seen what Flynn was capable of. Watching him bumble through this role is sad to watch. Even in 1957 Flynn was a fit man, a scene with his shirt off shows that, but his face tells another story. His face has the look of a man waiting to die or already with one foot in the grave. He looks ghastly.
The plot of the film is nothing great or even good. Just a simple, cheap film about some money counterfeiters. The plot is immaterial.
Watch this film if you absolutely have to see every Errol Flynn movie, but don't act like I didn't warn you. Viewers interested in Cuba might find something to enjoy. At least it was filmed on location.
Hong Kong (1952)
I stayed awake...barely.
I just finished watching this on Netflix not three minutes ago. Whatever his merits as President I think I can safely say that Ronald Reagan was not a good actor. I've only seen a couple of his films and I'm beginning to think that whatever charisma he displayed as President simply isn't present in his screen roles. Oh well.
Hong Kong is a cheap, cheap film about a disreputable ex-G.I. in 50s China trying to make a buck by stealing a gold idol from some poor orphaned Chinese boy. At no point do you ever expect Reagan to actually steal the idol and abandon the child to the wilds of the Hong Kong streets, but the movie sure likes to pretend like it might...maybe...sort of...could happen.
When he finally has a change of heart you're as surprised as finding out the sun will rise again tomorrow. The story is riddled with plot "twists" that are telegraphed half an act away and you end up watching the film constantly fifteen minutes ahead of the action. SPOILER: Good guys win, bad guys lose, good guy gets the girl. etc. etc. etc. You've seen this movie before...believe me.
As the story blandly marches forward your mind wanders toward what Humphrey Bogart could do with similar material and you remember that Bogart DID make movies with similar material: Casablanca, Tokyo Joe, The Maltese Falcon.
If this 1952 snoozer has any redeeming value, is that it reminds you how good Humpfrey Bogart's films were.
Trader Horn (1931)
Cultural Oddity
Watching this film from the perspective of 2010, this viewer at least could not but help marvel at the unintended comedy of this "adventure" film. For the sake of argument, I'll grant that the film was one of the first to depict African wildlife to a wide audience, giving some leeway to its bland documentary style "walking through the veld" scenes (of which there are several).
Discounting that, we are still left with quite a few minutes of running time. What fills those minutes? This movie hits the trifecta: racism, sexism, and homo eroticism.
1. Trader Horn spews racist epithets like 'boy' and 'monkey' at every turn, while Peru refers to the Africans as children. Not quite as offensive as virulent stateside racism, but equally as clueless.
2. The movie is laughably sexist as well portraying the White Goddess, although having lived in Africa nearly her entire life and is apparently a figure of authority, as completely useless. Worse than useless actually because Trader Horn and Peru alternate between carrying her and saving her, while she makes kissy faces to Peru. They should have left her in Africa and saved themselves the headache.
It should be noted that the White Goddess apparently never goes outside either because although she runs around in a bikini, she has no tan or sunburn, but rather white as a maiden.
3. Finally, we have the single most hilarious aspect of the film, the homo erotic subtext between Trader Horn and his Spanish boytoy Peru played by Duncan Renaldo. Horn and Peru spend the first half of the film holding hands and sweet-talking each other (I'm not exaggerating here) until the useless white chick shows up. The story would have been more interesting if Horn got upset with the white chick for upsetting Horn and Peru's relationship, but Horn apparently decides to give a token effort at appearing heterosexual.
Besides, Horn has his other boytoy, Ranchero, his native gun-carrier to fawn over. It truly is sad when Ranchero bites it at the end. Peru and the useless white chick leave, leaving Horn all alone in darkest Africa. What's a repressed homosexual to do in a continent where the men run around half-naked all day and jump at your every beck and call. I'm sure Horn will survive somehow.
The final shots of the White Goddess sailing away are apparently supposed to be uplifting: the brave European men rescuing one of their wayward daughters from the clutches of Africa, but frankly it was depressing. You just know she's going to be forced into ill-fitted dresses and made to sip tea and clutch her pearls at the blandest of offenses. They're shipping her off to slavery and she doesn't even know it. Imagine all those depressing scenes of Pocahontas after she has been taken to England from The New World - that's this woman's fate.
Great message for the girls. Be a strong-willed and independent until you meet a man. Then do what he tells you.
Although I absolutely loathed this movie and everything it stands for, a zebra does head butt a lion. For that I give this a gracious 4/10.
New York, New York (1977)
Daring, but Creative failure
Being only 25 years old I knew next to nothing about this movie except having heard the title song many, many times over the years. My preconceptions, however, led me to believe that this would be a Cabaret-style musical, detailing a Martin Scorsese directed love affair for the titular city.
The reality is that this is a cold amalgamation of old Hollywood Fred Asaire musical/bandstand picture with the nastiness and brutishness that in some ways defines Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese, and 1970s film-making in general. On the DVD, Scorsese has an introduction to the film, which shows that Scorsese and I are on the exact same page as to what was accomplished. He even acknowledges and tries to defend this picture by explaining his genre-crossing technique, but even he seems to understand that the final result didn't work as well as he had hoped. The characters are too unlikeable to be residing in a big-budget musical, the old Hollywood sets and design left me confused given the films tone, and by god this movie is about 45 minutes too long. I feel bad ragging on this film, but it is because it is obvious so much work and thought went into this production that having it turn out so bizarre seems near tragic. Going into the film Scorsese was probably wondering whether old Hollywood musicals and 1970s brutishness would mesh into a unified vision. In this case, the answer is NO.
Cabaret and Chicago both managed to be lavish musicals without turning into Rogers and Hammerstein tripe, by genuinely using the musical portions of the films to help tell the story, by being ironic (like Chicago) or being expository (like Cabaret). Neither film has a 'sappy ending' (as De Niro's character mocks the title of Minnelli's movie "Happy Endings" within the film), yet neither mocks the musical genre either (as Scorsese and the characters within New York, New York seem to do). I can't help but feel that Scorsese ultimately failed at this movie, because he couldn't see Hollywood musicals as being anything other than mindless, entertaining tripe. That's too bad, because Cabaret before and other musicals after like Moulin Rouge! and Chicago since have shown that the musical genre can be adult, be true, and still succeed without having to deconstruct/dishonor the genre in the process.
Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure (2007)
Almost "Walking With Dinosaurs" quality
This short documentary was a bit of a mixed bag. First the 3-D and CG: the director obviously was more at ease with the the extensive CG then the live action elements, because the 3-D work was jarring and uneven during then. Part of the problem occurs when the live-action segments are shot too closely to the target. There is a sequence in a car and it took me ten seconds at least to get adjusted to the 3-D. These are not problems that occurred in vista shots.
The CG work was fantastic and the 3-D involving it was equally as impressive. I saw Meet the Robinsons in 3-D this spring and am eagerly awaiting whatever other 3-D offers there are in store like Beowolf and Avatar.
I hate to keep ragging on the live-action elements, but the acting was wretched too. Apparently it is difficult finding somebody who will have all of 30 seconds of screen time and maybe 20 words of dialogue to not sound like they're reading off of a teleprompter. It is nice to see and having a 5-year it is nice to be able to show and explain to him how we can and do know these things about creatures that died out millions of years ago, but with such wooden acting it makes me just sit and wait until the CG behemoths come tearing across the screen again.
Wild Hogs (2007)
Maybe I missed something
It is quite possible that I was irritable last night or my heart is two sizes too small, but I felt that Wild Hogs was simply one of the most embarrassing, derivative, trashy, pieces o'crap that I've had the misfortune of wasting two hours of my time on. I am not the kind of person who rates everything 1's or 10's, nor do I write reviews regularly, but there was something singularly distasteful about this film that begged for a reaming on IMDb. I honest to god felt slightly brain-damaged for almost cracking a smile toward the end.
Whether it was the phoned in performances of the four leads, or the asinine plot, or the ham-fisted comedy, or the sense that the joke was one massive gay joke, I can't be sure, but I can't begin to express the depths of my loathing for this paint by numbers mess.
I feel bad for William H. Macy, I really do. No paycheck is worth this embarrassment. John Travolta, Tim Allen, and Martin Lawrence have all made some rotten, putrid films before, so this disaster simply doesn't leave that big of stain. But William H. Macy...I'm sure he's been in bad movies (Jurassic Park III, Psycho), but he limped from those with his dignity somewhat intact. Bill, if your out there reading this, you need to get to an AA meeting PRONTO (Actors Anonymous).
She Done Him Wrong (1933)
Bland and Meandering, had to have been better on stage
Despite showcasing Mae West's undeniable sex and film appeal, this film is a bland, meandering mess that accomplishes nothing except have Mae West parade around for an hour in fancy costumes. I am simply flabbergasted as to how it was nominated for best picture. At 66 minutes long, the movie is still mainly filler and quite easily could be pared down to a 20/25 minute short film. Furthermore, Cary Grant is wasted in this film, although it was film roles like this one that propelled him to superstar status.
However, this film does have some redeeming historical qualities, mainly that this film was early in the careers of both Cary Grant and Mae West and propelled them both to better films. In the case of Cary Grant, much, much better films.
Furthermore, this film was released before Hollywood censorship came into full swing, so Mae West is afforded a degree of latitude with her brazen sexuality that would have been impossible to do in film for the next 25 years of so. So I can say I was shocked to hear some of the things that comes out of Mae West's mouth. Not so much shocked to hear them, but shocked to hear them coming from a film released in 1933.
Cary Grant fans, Mae West fans, and film history buffs need only check this one out.