Absolute riot. So much fun. Park & Wright can do little wrong. Works pretty well as sci-fi & as comedy, but mostly as story about friends…
Gary King: “I think you bit off more than you can chew with Earth, mate.” Andrew Knightley: “Yeah, because we’re more belligerent, more stubborn and more idiotic than you could ever imagine.”
What’s more:
As the third film in the Cornetto Trilogy (with Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz), The World’s End comes with heavy expectations, which it absolutely fulfills. Producer Nira Park & director Edgar Wright get the band back together and this thing just plays…
The perpetually funny Simon Pegg & Nick Frost are joined this time by a great supporting cast featuring Eddie Marsan, Paddy Considine, Rosamund Pike and NVB fave Martin Freeman. These actors gel perfectly and completely sell their role as old friends.
At the insistence of Pegg’s ne’er do well addict Gary King, the old gang gets together in their old hometown to complete a pub crawl down the “Golden Mile” of 12 pubs that they failed to master as teenagers. The first half of the film is packed with great comedy and moments as they realize that of course you can’t go home again.
And if it had stopped there, it would have been quite a good movie. They could have left it at that and no one would have cause for complaint. But the whole thing gets more sublime as this theme that nothing stays the same becomes more explicit with the discovery that their hometown has in fact been invaded by body snatching aliens. Brilliant! It gets completely ridiculous, and in all the right ways.
The World’s End is a blast and never stops being funny, even with a slightly long for comedy 109 minute run-time. The movie feels like a night out with your friends, and makes me want to get the band back together to find our own Golden Mile and “see this through to the bitter end. Or… lager end.” Let’s Boo-Boo…
This is the weirdest movie I think I have ever seen, and it’s not like there aren’t a lot of films that have had that distinction before now.
I’m not going to make any friends with this review, but I didn’t really take to Spirited Away. It is Hayao Miyazaki’s masterpiece, and he is a truly gifted filmmaker, and everyone loves it, and it’s one of the best animated movies ever. Yeah, I get it. But I didn’t like it. Because I don’t like the style of his animated characters. I just don’t. I’ve tried, I really have. But they are ridiculous looking, and the fact that his backgrounds and landscapes and every other element of his films looks so great just makes the characters look more out of place to me.
This movie was aimed at kids the age of the protagonist (10 years old). Maybe I would have enjoyed it more then. My daughter certainly enjoyed it. Which is funny, because I would have sworn this was nightmare material. I’m not sure I’m going to avoid nightmares…
The biggest problem I had with Spirited Away was that I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was missing a whole lot of what was happening. It seemed that what was happening on screen was total madness, but that if I understood the Japanese culture better that there were all sorts of references to legends and things that would have made the whole thing make a lot more sense. It’s sort of like trying to judge fine cuisine when you don’t know anything about it; you may not enjoy what you’re eating but you somehow feel bad that you don’t – you don’t really have the vocabulary to express why.
You know what, though? That’s not my problem. These are movies, not fine art. And it wouldn’t matter if they were fine art. It’s weird, it looks like a really gorgeous world populated by nightmares and truly ugly things. The whole thing looks like William Burroughs went to art school.
But hey, the music was great and the attention to detail was remarkable. I’m going to keep watching Miyazaki-san, because he’s a genius and I love being challenged by his stuff…
In the middle of her family’s move to the suburbs, a sullen 10-year-old girl wanders into a world ruled by gods, witches, and monsters; where humans are changed into animals; and a bathhouse for these creatures.
The comedy is great – it’s very funny. The story is more clunky. Just not really well mapped out. Overall pretty good; could have been more.
Spoiler-free Movie Review of The To Do List:
The short version: The To Do List is a very funny movie, even if it isn’t as solid as it perhaps could have been. I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. When it was announced it really seemed like a good concept for a comedy.
The story from rookie writer/director Maggie Carey is semi-autobiographical and a great premise: valedictorian decides to apply her task oriented study style to exploring her sexuality before heading off to college. It works well as a comedic backdrop.
It’s a very refreshing story, largely because the main character, Brandy, is no victim or subject of exploitation. She is an empowered, confident, brilliant young woman who has decided to take control of a part of her life that she has previously ignored. It is a unique character for film, and it’s wonderful to see a new role for a woman on screen; a woman that is in the driver’s seat on her own sexual journey. The matter-of-fact way that Brandy (played by Aubrey Plaza) approaches each sexual encounter is a breath of fresh air.
The problem for me is simply that although that is really all that is going on in this story (which isn’t a problem in of itself) there is an excess of characters and half-developed storylines. There’s enough family dynamic to be its own movie, a love triangle that’s more of a straight line, a surplus of Bill Hader scenes, including a side story with Brandy teaching him to swim, all sorts of workplace hijinks – it’s just all too much. There’s great stuff there, but the movie as a whole feels scattered.
And by the way, the movie takes place in 1993, which in my opinion is the single best thing about it. The setting is great, and if you were college-age around this time (as I was), it’s a blast to relive the dreadful clothes, music & tech. (The closing credits music is MC Hammer’s “Can’t Touch This”, which I previously thought I’d safely reach the end of my life without having to listen to again.)
Finally, I’ve got a few items for Hollywood’s To Do List:
Teenager comedies need more teenagers. Seriously. Why are these adults playing teens? Aubrey Plaza was around 28 at filming.
If you’re going to insist on continually having dumb parent parts in movies, at least cast them with dumb people. Clark Gregg & Connie Britton are far too talented to be stuck with these roles.
Please, more good roles for women being actual women like this one so that it isn’t such a novelty, and so it doesn’t need to come in gross out movies like this.
On that subject, please, no more scenes of people spitting, throwing up or anything with bodily fluids. It’s foul.
Feeling pressured to become more sexually experienced before she goes to college, Brandy Klark makes a list of things to accomplish before hitting campus in the fall.
Lovely little stop-motion love story from Disney & Google in time for Valentine’s Day. Sans dialogue, visuals need to be amazing. They are.
What’s more:
Disney puts together some great stuff sometimes that reminds you how the company started and what it still does best: animation.
This is a sweet short film (clocks in just under 40 minutes), without any dialogue, but with an excess of quality stop-motion. Decidedly old-school, the animation is top-notch and beautiful.
The story is small but not slight: Blank & Bow, two Vinylmation figures (a Disney collectible) fall in love at first sight, and seek each other out after being separated. That’s all it needs; it’s a nice little tale, full of emotion even with silent and expressionless characters. Quite a feat, really…
Don’t say it takes too many liberties with the story. This is the movie that Douglas Adams wanted to make; he wrote most of the screenplay.
Spoiler-free Movie Review of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy…:
Sort of surprised to realize I hadn’t already reviewed this, as it’s one of my very favorite movies. It just always puts me in a really good mood.
Like virtually every movie based on a beloved book, it has a lot of detractors. Most seem to be upset that the movie is too American, too Hollywood, not British enough, different from the book. Your criticisms are noted – and irrelevant.
This is the movie that Douglas Adams would have made had he lived to see it. He wrote most of the screenplay and was the one who came up with every substantial new story element. He felt that only Arthur Dent needed to be British. And most importantly, Adams viewed his most celebrated work as a living thing; remember that it started not as a novel but as a radio play. He frequently revised his work as it morphed from radio to book to tv to computer game to theater production and all the way back.
All works need to be flexible if they are to make a successful transition to a new medium. All that matters is that you don’t lose the spirit of the original material as you adjust for the different needs of film.
So does it retain the spirit of Adams’ work? Damn right it does. The changes were needed; the book really doesn’t have a consistent narrative; it’s just things happening one after another. (Some still complain that the movie doesn’t do enough to change this and suffers from the same problem.) Trillian & Arthur needed more of a love story – an Adams addition. The only add that I don’t really get is the whole Humma Kavula character, but again, Adams created him.
The other issue that fans complain about is casting. Here I must wildly diverge from the fanboy base. I LOVE the casting.
I don’t know who visualized Mos Def as Ford Prefect but they deserve a special casting Oscar. I think Mos is perfect, giving the whole affair a fresh feel; he’s got the attitude a planet-hopping hitchhiking writer needs.
Similarly, Sam Rockwell is fantastic. If you feel that he’s too over the top, I hear you. But I think over the top is needed in a movie with so much dialogue and subtle humor.
As for Zooey Deschanel, she is a bit inconsistent. Her first scene aboard the Heart of Gold is really awkward – she just seems to be having trouble playing off of Marvin the Paranoid Android. But if you don’t let that early scene influence your impression you’ll realize the way she plays Trillian lends some credibility to the character and why someone would go parading around the galaxy.
I don’t hear any bitching about Martin Freeman, with good reason, as he is as perfect an Arthur Dent as could ever be expected.
Hammer and Tongs, the pairing of director Garth Jennings with his producer Nick Goldsmith, were recommended by Spike Jonze after he passed on directing the film. Coming from a music video background, Jennings brings a wonderful visual style to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The production design and visual effects are top shelf and unique, which can be very difficult in science fiction.
Really I can’t see why people don’t like this movie. Bill Nighy and Helen Mirren drop by for great roles, the Guide itself is a lust-worthy thing of beauty (and voiced by Stephen Fry), the opening song is magnificent, Douglas Adams’ mum has a cameo, Deep Thought is so cool, Marvin is played by Warwick Davis and voiced by Alan Rickman; it’s just a really fun movie.
[schema type=”movie” name=”The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” description=”Mere seconds before the Earth is to be demolished by an alien construction crew, journeyman Arthur Dent is swept off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher penning a new edition of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”” director=”Garth Jennings” actor_1=”Martin Freeman” actor_2=”Mos Def” actor_3=”Sam Rockwell” actor_4=”Zooey Deschanel” ]
Mere seconds before the Earth is to be demolished by an alien construction crew, journeyman Arthur Dent is swept off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher penning a new edition of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”
