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Travelers (2016)
An Awesome Travel Through Time
Travelers has it all: great cast, intelligent writing, a super premise, and lots of dark humor and social statements.
After Earth (2013)
Bad science, but worth watching
Will Smith makes good movies, and this one is enjoyable. "I Robot" it's not. "Aliens," "2001 Space Odyssey," "Blade Runner," "District Nine"... this is a different kind of movie.
Jaden Smith, Will Smith's son in life, plays Kitai Raige, son of Cypher Raige (played by Will Smith). It is a father/son movie in every aspect, with meaningful messages (peritinent to the world in its present state). The panoramas and cinematography are wonderful.
The science, however, is wrong in so many places. Kitai, the hero of the story, must travel 100km (62 miles) to save himself and his father. On foot, that's a long distance, but it's not far enough for such drastic changes in biomes. Every night the world freezes, but by morning, it is still green and leafy. Not wanting to give too much away, I will say that the planet on which the two become isolated would not have changed so drastically in a mere one thousand years. How was the past so efficiently obliterated by the present (no remnants of concrete structures)?
Going beyond the science, the movie is worth watching. I applaud Will Smith for stepping to a minor role to let his son take the spotlight. The environmental message is abrupt, but combined with the familial messages... I think more movies should offer such messages so that maybe , one of these days (before it's too late), we get the message and start acting on our own, instead of watching our actions acted out on screen.
I've read the reviews posted on IMDb, and so far I'm guessing this is the only review that gives the movie some credit. I didn't think "After Earth" is as bad as the reviews claim. The acting is not stellar, the plot is predictable, the science is wrong... but if I judge the movie on its own, without comparing it to others that are overladen with special effects and gory sequences, I find a good story, with messages too many folks seem to have missed.
Pain & Gain (2013)
So Many Other Movies Do Better
Pain & Gain offers up some stupid bad guys who do some real serious stuff, but the sophomoric writers of this flick thought they'd treat gruesome business tongue-in-cheek. You can't do it, particularly not with an overkill of gratuitous gross jokes, unnecessary nudity, racism, and just plan bad writing. Too many times in the story the characters acted like junior high kids trying to pull off a stunt before the teacher showed up. The scenes weren't all that funny, and made the characters seem cheap, instead of desperate and lethal. Too much pointlessness, which made for a long movie. For movies about stupid bad guys, I prefer "A Simple Plan" (Billy Bob Thorton and Bill Paxton, 1998), and "Fargo" (William H. Macy, Frances McDormand, Steve Buscemi, 1996).
I should have turned off this movie halfway through it.
The ABCs of Death (2012)
Ten Out of Twenty-six... a good batting average, but a movie?
Movies or literature, when it comes to anthologies you're going to get some brilliance, some turkeys, and some you wish didn't exist. "The ABCs of Death" is an anthology; it's got some brilliance, it's got some turkeys, and it's got some utter trash. The film is rife with blood, sometimes appropriately, more often gratuitous.
I find "toilet humor" funny, and "ABCs" has three segments (F, K, and T) that fit the bill. I laughed heartily. Of the others, though some were rather gruesome, I enjoyed:
B—A good ol' fairy tale; D—A good story and a great turn at the end; J—I busted out laughing; N—I'm a guy, this is a "chick-flick" segment, but it was funny; Q—At the end I realized I should have seen it coming—a real bang; R—Damned quirky, but wide open for interpretation; S—Wasn't great acting (seemed more like porno queens who landed an almost-mainstream gig with this movie), but it was a brutally, well told true story... the ending hurt. V—This needed to be longer, and it could be. Maybe someday it will become feature-length; X—Brutally honest, sad, mean, and gory; Y—I love it when a little kid wins, and for a cause I support.
So, thirty-eight percent of the movie kept my attention. Of the remaining sixty-two percent:
A—Boring, and made no sense because the wife's motive lacked logic; C—Almost a good story, just not enough time to go into what was really happening, or why, or how; E—Yawn; G—Not bad, but... not bad... but... ; H—Live actor comic book stuff can be better than this; I—Mean just to be mean and disgusting. The husband lacked motive. Something I didn't need to see; L—Lewd and crude only for the sake of being lewd and crude. Another something I didn't need to see; M—A sad and true event for too many people that does not belong in cinema. The film tried to make humor out of it. You can't. No one should make light of this fact of life; O—Yawn; P—Disjointed, and I don't enjoy watching sadistic people kill kittens just for the shock factor —and realistically, the way the protagonist was portrayed, she would not have been able to do it; U—The director tried the "Blair Witch" technique, but just couldn't muster any suspense, horror, humor... well, just couldn't muster; W—What a pointless, sophomoric piece of tripe the director turned in at the last minute because he couldn't think of anything else... another something I didn't need to see; Z—Gratuitous pornography and violence, all for the sake of trying to make a political statement that never gets stated, and which wouldn't mean anything in the midst of such immature use of non-sexual vaginas and penises. I am sad I sat through this segment. It was pure filth.
For me, not even half the movie made the grade, which is unfortunate, because the thirty- eight percent that I did like, I'd like to see again some time in the future.
The Sensation of Sight (2006)
Meanings of Life
I like movies about the meaning of life. Yes, they lack action, no special effects, no slick plots... just down-to-earth conversations.
It's a bit odd that Finn (David Strathairn) romps about town with encyclopedias in his little red wagon, but that's the point. The movie is slow for a reason. The images drive this movie as much as the characters. Each visual is as deep as the dialog.
The way Finn stops and wonders, the expressions on his face, his pauses in dialog... . The character of Finn would be a hard one to portray, but Strathairn provides a wonderful performance. Hats off to whoever cast him for the part.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008)
A Heart Wrencher
The story revolves around two boys, one a German, the other a Jew. They live on opposites sides of a dire fence. They share a bond humanity has forgotten.
I don't want to write about the movie. The plot is self-explanatory. We are all familiar with the brutality of the concentration camps of World War II. This story depicts that brutality with a sincere sense of sentimentality and severity, in a no-holds-barred manner. The ending is unforgettable. I can only say that I bought the movie right after seeing it for the first time, and I put it on the shelf in my top-ten section. I watch it every several months.
Have tissues handy. This movie dropped my head in my hands.
Hansel & Gretel (2013)
Thank goodness I'm only out a buck twenty from Redbox.
It's hard to find a good horror movie. Halfway through this one, I gave up.
This one takes the cake for being worse than lousy. It's not tasteful, or even tasteless; it's just stupid. I hit the x2 fast-forward button when Hansel, who has suffered a bone crushing injury to his ankle, suddenly puts all his weight on that ankle to hoist himself up dungeon stairs. Later, when a villain thrusts a knife into his shoulder joint, and twists the thick, wide blade to dig all the way through Hansel's body, it makes no sense for Hansel to immediately lift that arm and use it. A girl is beaten severely about the stomach (being tenderized for the oven), but five minutes later gets through a tight tunnel under her own power. A fella takes an arrow in the spine, and scurries off at breakneck speed. When Dad is skewered in the stomach by a pitch fork, blood spews from his mouth, yet we are told he survives.
Even Batman had to call Alfred for help when his ribs got rattled in "Batman Begins."
I don't care if it's horror, sci-fi, or fantasy. Humans are subject to their physiology. Even in a well-done fantasy, the fairies, sprites, orcs, and gremlins are subject to their bodies. They even obey the laws of physics, which I won't get into regarding Hansel and Gretel.
Thank goodness I spent only a buck twenty on what is now on my list among worst-ever movies.
Oh... and Gretel's sudden change of heart at the end... don't get me started.
The Tree of Life (2011)
Glad I Didn't Pay to See It in a Theater
More times than is necessary, a movie comes along that provides an opportunity for too many folks to write reviews they think will elevate them above ordinary folks into an elite group of intellectuals. Pitiful really. No amount of intellectualism or philosophical babbling can improve a lousy movie.
Terry Malick forgot one simple idea when he made Tree of Life; he forgot he was making a movie. Instead, it seems Malick set out to create his magnum opus, an epic about life, the universe, and everything, but Douglas Adams already accomplished that far better without all the mental pretentiousness.
A good movie should be a good story, with a beginning, a climax, and a resolution (even if the ending is left open for interpretation). It should have a storyline through which viewers can trace the development of the characters. It should have scenes which help viewers make connections to their own lives.
Aside from a cliché beginning, Tree of Life fails on all those accounts.
We are told that a son is dead, and we're never completely sure which of three sons until the end of the movie (and by that time we don't care). After the initial introduction, we are then thrust into the creation of the universe, the formation of the solar system, the creation of planet Earth, the evolution of life, and finally the birth of humans, with no rhyme or reason regarding what such karmic movement has to do with the overall story. The musical accompaniment was too loud, and the particular arias poorly chosen.
The characters wander so pathetically aimless that we do not really care about them. Their moments of spiritual questioning ring with too much triteness. The scenes in which they appear remain disjointed. After one hundred thirty-nine minutes of Malick's egotistical maundering, I still don't know why I needed to witness the eldest boy sneak into someone's house and steal lingerie, which he floated down a river.
If I want two hours of disjointedness, disappointment, and just seeming randomness in life, all I have to do is walk outside and live my own life. But if I want a good story about an inner spiritual discovery I'd rather watch a good movie: "Broken Flowers", "Winter's Bone", "The Sensation of Sight", "I've Loved You So Long", or, "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter
and Spring".