Movie Review: Annapolis

Went and saw "Annapolis" yesterday with my two teenage sons, while SubBasket and our daughter went and saw "Brokeback Mountain". (girlfriday has a new review of Brokeback Mountain up that gives the perspective of a conservative Idaho woman -- you might be surprised. It just convinces me even more that it's a chick flick.)

Anyway, I went to Annapolis fully expecting to end up giving it "the finger" in my review. Based on the trailer I'd seen, which featured quick shots of ships at sea, I expected a "first year midshipmen are called out to lead the naval attack on a terrorist/white supremicist stronghold" type of movie. Luckily, the trailer was misleading; it ended up being a cross between "An Officer and a Gentleman" and "Rocky" ("A Plebe and a Boxer" would have been a more accurate title.)

Storywise, the movie was OK; nothing special, but not bad either. (Kid from wrong side of tracks goes to upscale college, learns he needs to work with his classmates, meets girl, gains respect of upperclassman.) From a "military accuracy" perspective, though, it looks like another movie where they either didn't hire a military technical advisor, or didn't listen to the one they got.

The worst "continuity" error was having the only major commissioned officer character be dressed as a Lieutenant Commander (his nametag said "Lt Cdr", which makes me think the military expert they had was an Army guy), but be referred to by himself, and others, as a "Lieutenant". The ribbons people wore were at least in the right order, but mostly inappropriate for that persons level of seniority and/or warfare community. Regarding the interactions between the midshipmen, it was all straight out of central casting. There was the stereotypical sadistic upperclassman who enjoyed tormenting the plebes, who eventually gets his comeuppance. There were the misfit freshman who have to come together to overcome their tormentors. They even had a scene where a plebe had to complete the obstacle course or they'd get kicked out -- instead of a woman, it was an African-American man in the "Seegar" role.

I was most interested to see the reaction of what the Navy (which didn't officially support the film) probably hopes is the target demographic: high school students who might be interested in going to the Academy. It turns out my oldest son is in that group; he said that the film made him realize how tough the Academy could be, and probably "less likely" to want to attend. (From my perspective, that's an upcheck.) I explained to him that while the movie made it seem as though upperclass midshipmen were very powerful and mean, and that they may perceive of themselves as such, in truth all they are is 21 year old jerks without any real-world experience. Let's face it -- when they finally graduate, after four years of being told that they're the "best and the brightest" they become: Ensigns. And we all know that the only thing more worthless to the running of a ship than an Ensign is -- a midshipman. I told him that, if he does go to Annapolis, his biggest challenge should be avoiding laughing in the face of the 20 year old martinet-wannabes as they're yelling at him during his plebe year.

I don't think the movie is doing very well -- this is the only time in my life that my party was the only group in the theater. My younger son, who has no desire to go to Annapolis, thought it was a "pretty good" movie, and gave it 4 out of 5. My oldest gave it a 3.5. For me, the adequacy of the non-military storyline, and positive reviews from the target demographic, convinced me not to give it "the finger". Instead, it gets two stereotypically-hardass midshipman caricatures out of five.

And regarding "Brokeback Mountain" -- I always get in trouble here at home if I make fun of it, so if you see anyone get confused and describe it as "a tender love story between a fugitive wizard and his tempermental hippogriff called "Buckbeak Mountin' ", it wasn't me.

Going deep...

Update 0604 06 Feb: I almost forgot; they also had midshipmen doing navigation exercises where the plebes gave answers of "soandso degrees, 85 minutes" -- not once but multiple times, using numbers for minutes greater than 59 -- without being corrected by the upperclass midshipmen. It may have been a comment from the scriptwriters about how midshipmen are essentially clueless, but I think it was really an indication that the writers were clueless.

Also, I swear I didn't see this StategyPage smack-down of Annapolis before I wrote my review (I think it came out after mine anyway...)

Movie Review: "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire"

Just got back from the midnight showing of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire"; the audience was excited, the movie was beautiful, and I ended up somewhat disappointed.

The first two movies seemed to mostly be the "setup" -- you were being introduced to the characters, and there was a sense of a "stand back, I'm going to do magic" feeling to them. The third movie, Prisoner of Azkaban, was, and remains, the best of the series. This one, I felt, was kind of a step backwards.

The book on which the movie is based is very good -- and very long. I had heard that the initial plans were to make it into two movies; release one at Thanksgiving, and the next four weeks later. That would have been the right move. Even at 2 1/2 hours, this movie leaves out so much that anyone who had not read the book would be hopelessly lost -- and those who did read the book will be disappointed with what was left out. Not to put in too many spoilers, but the maze scene in particular was lacking much of what made it such an exciting read.

Don't get me wrong -- if you're a Harry Potter fan, the movie is worth seeing. The actor who plays 'Mad-Eye' Moony stands out in particular, and Dame Maggie Smith has an expanded roll, which can't be bad. Just don't go in expecting to feel the movie will add anything to the book experience, like POA did. I can only hope that they'll get Prisoner of Azkaban director Alfonso Cuarón back for the sixth movie (David Yates has already been announced as the director of the next movie, due in 2007).

More later, perhaps, after I've had time to digest it (and get some sleep... the alarm goes off in two hours).

Bell-ringer 2013 19 Nov: Ninme has her review up; she liked the movie, didn't like this particular movie-going experience so much.

Movie Review: "300"

Here's how the CNN review of "300" begins to sum up the movie:

Nevertheless, it's not so much the body count or even the blood lust that's disturbing. It's that the film, with its macho militarism, seems out of step in a war-weary time.

Big surprise there -- not! The mainstream press has been finding an "anti-war" message in all recent movies about war, even in "Letters From Iwo Jima" -- to me, the message in that film was "hopeles, pointless war is bad" rather than "all war is bad". "300", a graphic stylization of the Battle of Thermopylae, is just about the ultimate "guy movie" -- lots of limbs being hacked off and male bonding in a not-really-homoerotic way. The movie itself is visually stunning; it was almost entirely shot in front of a blue screen, with the backgrounds inserted digitally with a surreal color palette. (This Time magazine review has some of the details of how the movie was shot.) Here in Boise, the late showings on the digital screen were sold out before the early evening showing started -- it looks like the marketing plan worked pretty well for this film.

Bottom line -- if you're looking for a guy movie with lots of violence and some sick humor, "300" is a good choice. On the other hand, if you're looking for a realistic portrayal of ancient battles, try The History Channel. I give it 4 gratuitous decapitations out of 5.

May Movie Reviews

I ended up seeing all four "big" May movies last month (no, I don't consider "Sex And The City" a big movie), and was gonna review all of them, but never found the time. (I did review "Speed Racer" earlier, and ended up deciding I liked it a little more than the initial review implies.) Since I don't have time for decent reviews, here are some synopsii, in order of how much I liked them:

1) "Iron Man": I wasn't really expecting to like this one; I've never read the comic book, and I'm not a big Robert Downey, Jr. fan, but this one was really good. It combined good manly action with a surprising amount of humor that just made for an really enjoyable movie experience.

2) "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull": My third favorite of the four Indiana Jones films ("Last Crusade" is my favorite, then "Raiders"), the movie suffers only in comparison to the previous good films in the franchise. The action is good, Harrison Ford does a great job, but let's face it -- "Crystal Skulls" just don't match up to the Holy Grail or the Lost Ark as the subject of a good quest. Had this been a stand-alone movie, it might have made the top of my list for May, but loses out only because I had a nagging feeling that it could have been much better.

3) "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian": I actually liked this film better than the first one in the series. I thought the story flowed more smoothly, and the kids weren't nearly as annoying; I really liked how they quickly brought the story up to speed and effectively showed how returning to their own world after their first Narnia adventure changed the Pevensie children. I was disappointed with how they portrayed Aslan in the first movie; in this one, they didn't back away from the Jesus parallels, they accepted them with open arms. That, and a more "believable" story to work with, made this one a really good film.

4) "Speed Racer": The more I think about it, the more I enjoy it; my earlier review is here, and nothing much has changed, although I've convinced myself in hindsight that the good overweighs the "blah" enough that I'm raising my rating to a 4 out of 5 -- the same as the other three movies.

Movie Review: "Stealth"

Just got back from seeing "Stealth", the new movie about the "Naval Air Force of the near future" (EW review here). First, the good: Lots of kewl computer-generated action sequences with loud explosions; Jessica Biel is sufficiently hot; and Jamie Foxx has some good lines. As long as you can suspend disbelief about the plot holes, continuity problems, and stereotypical military characters, it's worth watching when it gets to HBO, if you're not otherwise busy on a Monday night.
Now, the problems, particularly from a "military" point of view (a lot of these problems were similarly shared with "Top Gun", to which this movie could be most closely compared; the main difference is that I actually developed some empathy for Goose, Maverick, and the gang in Top Gun; I felt no such connections with these characters):
1) Once again, we see Navy officers going out on liberty in Service Dress Whites. While Jessica Biel's uniform isn't actually in use now (it's basically the Woman's SDW jacket without the underlying shirt) this is supposed to take place in the future, so I can't fault them. Plus, she looked better. In the similar scene in "Top Gun", at least they were at the Officer's Club on base. Here, they were just out in a civilian place in town. The only time that Navy Officers above the rank of Ensign actually wear their uniforms when they don't have to is when they are part of the cast of "JAG" (which I guess isn't real, either).
2) Movie producers don't seem to grasp that there are officer ranks between Lieutenant and Captain. The three main characters here are all Lieutenants, which is much too junior for people to reach the level of responsibility these characters did. On the other hand, they did better than "Top Gun", in which Goose was a LTjg and attended Fighter Weapons School; aviators don't normally even reach their first squadron until they're almost LTs.
3) The action is supposed to take place onboard USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), but in one of the stock footage scenes of the ship, you can clearly see that the hull number is 68 (USS Nimitz). Since you're digitally altering everything else, why not at least fix the hull number?
4) As noted above, the setting was the "Naval Air Force" in the near future. Naval Air Force?!? "When I grow up, I'm going to join the Naval Air Force, so I can learn to force air into my belly-button."
5) The bad guy was a standard O-6 Program Director type; actually, that's not really a problem with the movie -- most of those types I knew were fairly evil.

Overall, my rating for this movie is taken from the old Jamie Foxx show "In Living Color": "I give this movie... the finger". My sons, on the other hand, were able to successfully suspend disbelief, and gave it a 4... out of 5.

Going deep...

Movie Review: Superman Returns

SubBasket, DeepDiver, and I saw "Superman Returns" on Friday night, and had three quite different reactions. SubBasket, a [redacted] year old wife and mother, thought it was really good. DeepDiver, a 14 year old boy, thought is was pretty good. And I thought it was probably one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time.

Please note that I didn't dislike it because they weren't "pro-American" enough. It just wasn't a good movie -- I wasn't inspired to care about the characters, I was bored during the long breaks between action sequences, there was hardly any humor, and it didn't have nearly enough explosions. I'm willing to suspend disbelief when I see a superhero movie, but this one went way out into left field. For example, Superman's ability to fly has always been due, I've assumed, to his incredibly strong leg muscles. Here, he just has an innate ability to hover -- what's up with that? This new Superman has a little too much of a weird "stalker" quality about him that I'm sure makes him more "vulnerable" for that portion of the movie-going public who look for hidden sensitivity in brooding, dangerous men. I just want them to beat up bad guys while engaging in witty repartee.

I admit that I might be wrong about this movie -- girlfriday liked it, but she's a known person of gender. I'm going to split my rating up into two parts: as a movie to take your (female) date to, I'll give it a 3 out of 5. As a guy movie, I'll give it a 2 -- two middle fingers, boldly extended.

(Disclaimer: I was in a slightly bad mood going into the movie because the theater's ticket office didn't have their credit card system working, so I had to use the ATM in the lobby to get cash to pay for the tickets, and I had to pay a $1.50 service charge there plus whatever my bank's going to charge me for using an off-network ATM, and on top of that the theater wouldn't even comp me any snacks when I complained to the manager about the extra charge in hopes of getting free stuff. Plus, I had to wait in the ATM line behind a couple who didn't know how to use the ATM, so we missed the showing in the digital theater. Of course, the movie probably would have only sucked in more vivid color with the digital projector.)

Update 1539 01 July: Michelle Malkin didn't like the movie much, either.

Movie Review: "Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince"

I got off work early last night to see the midnight showing of the sixth "Harry Potter" movie. The theaters were absolutely packed; we had something like 8 showings at our cineplex. My sons and their friends showed a highly-refined sense of humor by going in costume -- associated with other movies. Most were Jedis, but others came as Captain Kirk and President Bush with brooms labeled "USS Enterprise" and "Air Force One", respectively. I can really appreciate this highly-developed irony among today's teenagers. I only wish I could have appreciated the movie more.

SPOILER ALERT!

There were a lot of good things about the movie. They made a smart decision when they decided to aim the movie strictly at people who had seen the previous films and read the books, so they didn't bother explaining things for "newbies"; this gave them more time to tell the story. The performances were generally very good. The young actors are really growing into their craft, and the adults were, as usual, outstanding. The special effects were good, as were the set design and camera work. Overall, the technical portions were great; it was the screenplay adaptation from the book that caused a problem.

At the beginning, they cut out everything about Kreacher and Harry being Sirius Black's heir; I could understand that to a certain extent, since they replaced it with a new scene that helped foreshadow the teen romance aspect of the movie (which was a little overdone, but not exceedingly so -- I have to remember I'm not the target audience, so teenage girls might have liked that part of it). The fatal problem came at the end. Here's the director's "dilemma" - you're making an adventure film, and your source material features a climatic fight scene finvolving well-beloved characters in mortal peril. What would you do? Seems like a no-brainer to me. In this case, however, the director decided to cut it out completely; I can't understand that decision at all. What replaced it was so anti-climatic that it completely killed my enjoyment of the movie, even with the very-well done previous scene of Harry and Dumbledore finding the fake Horcrux. Up until the last sequence, I was prepared to give the film a 4 out of 5. The last 15 minutes, however, were so disappointing that I'm forced to give that part of the move "the finger" quite emphatically, reducing my overall rating to 2 hormonally-overdriven snogging teenagers out of five.

Movie Review: "Where The Wild Things Are"

I went with my wife, sister-in-law, and 4-year-old nephew to see the new movie "Where The Wild Things Are" yesterday morning. I'd read this beloved book (written the year I was born) to my kids frequently, and always put on a really good performance of my favorite lines:

They roared their terrible roars,
And gnashed their terrible teeth,
And rolled their terrible eyes,
And showed their terrible claws...

This movie didn't feature teeth gnashing or eye rolling, but it gave us something more -- a really good film that really young kids will like while their parents are getting an emotional roller coaster ride. The pre-schooler loved it, and both the ladies with me admitted to being in tears at points. (I just got something in my eyes.) Kids over 8 years old, however, might find it a little too intense.

The movie works on many levels. It explains why Max makes mischief of one kind and another (a broken home and unhappy childhood) and spells out -- without shoving it in your face -- how the Wild Things are manifestations of the people and feelings in his life. The CGI and voice acting were incredible; the Wild Things seemed as real as the boy. It was the adaptation of the story that will cause the most controversy; this movie really isn't aimed at kids, even though the advertising campaign seems to be. Will children from unhappy homes leave the theater in tears? Will they emulate Max in making mischief? They might, but they might have done that even without seeing the movie. For parents who are worried about how the film might affect their more sensitive kids, I'd suggest seeing it yourself first -- you'll have a first-rate theater-going experience even if you decide not to take your children. I give this movie four Wild Rumpuses out of five.

Good Ship Topeka Deploys

My first boat, USS Topeka (SSN 754), left on deployment earlier this week; here's a picture:

According to this story, Topeka was featured in the new movie "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen". Even when we first got around to San Diego in 1991, the Topeka was kind of the "go-to" boat when it came to media availabilities. With her recent appearance on "24", along with this movie, it looks like they're still using her as the local Media Darling. (I won't see the movie until Saturday, but from what I've heard from some family members, who went to the midnight showing Tuesday night, the boat doesn't fare so well.)

Update 1701 27 June: I saw the movie. I didn't have enough thoughts about it to make it worth writing a full "Movie Review" post, but I liked it OK. It was basically a huge advertisement for American servicepeople and advanced U.S. military gear, and I was cool with that. (That's probably also why a lot of media critics don't like it.) The movie was pretty long (almost 3 hours) so I should have looked it up on RunPee before I went. As usual, there were some technical problems with the submarine sections: the submarine is shown as being on the surface while "on station", but is able to submerge within about 30 seconds. The ocean where Megatron is buried, the Laurentian Abyss, is described as being "9,600 fathoms" deep -- it's actually about just over 2,000 fathoms deep, and the deepest point in the actual ocean is 5,900 fathoms. The 3-D capabilities of the shipboard sonar are at least explainable if one assumes that they've instrumented the area where a submarine is on duty "at all times". They also showed my old carrier, USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74), right before she somehow changed into CVN 71. (The Stennis shows up again later as herself.) Except for the part where the sub was on the surface, the gaffes weren't actually too distracting, so I give the movie three Hot Decepticons Coeds out of five.

Movie Review: Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End

We finished up our May Movie Spectacular Triple Crown tonight by seeing the 8 PM showing of the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie. The theater was about 80% full for the first showing, but I heard from someone in the lobby afterwards that the 8:05 PM showing was only about 1/3 full. (Our local theater had five (!) showings starting between 8 and 8:30, and another five starting between 11:30 PM and midnight.)

If you're thinking of seeing PotC3, one thing is sure -- don't even think about going unless you saw the 2nd one. The story picks right up where that one left off, and they don't even try filling in the backstory for those who didn't see "Dead Man's Chest". I don't want to give away too much, but parts of the movie I enjoyed were the "ultimate trim party" and really good CGI. I also laughed at the monkey a few times. Keith Richards wasn't as good as I had hoped, but he was still a highlight.

I can't really say it was a disappointment, because I honestly didn't expect too much out of it. The Y-chromosome-lacking members of my household are really big Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom fans (one for each) so they seemed to like it. I normally like longer movies that use the time to develop the characters (or blow extra stuff up) but the three Pirates movies have always made me think, "This thing is still going on? Why?"

I don't mind suspending disbelief, but only if it serves a purpose. The script of this movie had 17th or 18th century people using sail travelling between the Caribbean and Singapore in essentially no time flat. I could see them doing it if there was a purpose, but in this case it only seemed to be so they could have Chow Yun-Fat as a pirate, and since he's Asian, they had to have him live in Asia. If you're featuring Davy Jones' Locker as an actual place, why not say Asian pirates set up a base in the Caribbean? It was distracting to all the people in the audience who have actually sailed across the Pacific a few times.

When we were driving home, my youngest son said, "Well, the three "3" movies in May were sure a disappointment. If The Simpsons Movie and Transformers end up sucking, I'm going to give up on summer 'blockbusters' forever." (Re: the "Three 3s", we both ended up agreeing that Spiderman 3 was the best of a mediocre lot, and Shrek 3 was the worst.) I've been through enough bad "summer smash movies" (read "Godzilla") to know what he was talking about, but this movie still had enough going for it for me to keep some faith in Hollywood. Overall, I give it three unnecessary plot twists out of five.

A Tale Of Two Movies

I was hoping to get out to see some of the new summer movies this weekend so I could provide a review to all of my fans (Hi, Mom!), but I ended up with too much to do. Then I thought, "Hey, I'm a Friedmanian "Flat Worlder" -- I can outsource my movie-watching". I assembled a crack team of three movie experts to review the top two movies out this weekend: "The Da Vinci Code" and "X-Men: The Last Stand". The team consisted of the following members:

Reviewer #1: An 18 year old college sophomore at home for the long weekend. The baggage she brought home consisted mostly of dirty clothes that she wanted someone to wash. She doesn't want a bunch of submariners poking around her MySpace site, so she won't tell her dad how to get to it.
Reviewer #2: A 15 year old high school freshman who was recently elected Sophomore Class President for next year at Idaho's biggest high school. His chest is hairier at 15 than his dad's was at 30.
Reviewer #3: A 14 year old 8th grader who recently won his school's chess championship. Despite his demonstrated intellect, he still can't remember his username or password to update his blog. He just grew an inch in the last few months, and is now about 1/4" taller than Reviewer #2 (and almost 2" taller than his dad).

On Friday night, they saw The Da Vinci Code. I was eager to hear about the reactions of those who hadn't read the book vs. the one who had. Reviewer #1 likes almost all movies -- she hated this one. She said it made her list of the 5 worst movies of all time; Reviewer #3 thought it might have been #1 on his list of bad movies. Both made statements to the effect of "We didn't want to leave the theater to go to the bathroom because we expected that at any time there'd be a scene that would explain what was going on. That scene never came." Reviewer #2, who had read the book, said the movie not only didn't add anything to the book, it took a lot away from the experience. Bottom line: two of the three reviewers got in trouble from their mom for giving the movie "the finger"; the third would have given it the same, but she's a proper young lady.

On Saturday, they saw "X-Men III". Reviewers #1 and #3 hadn't seen the previous two movies in the series, and both said that wasn't a problem with understanding this film. All three liked the movie a lot -- the action kept moving along, and most of the characters were interesting. Reviewer #3 did question why all of the non-standard colored mutants were blue. Although their reviews may have been skewed because they, especially Reviewers #2 and #3, were right in the middle of the target demographic, they all gave the movie between 4 and 5 out of five.

Literary note: I was going to really mess with WillyShake's head and sub-title this post "A tale told by teenagers", mixing Dickens with Shakespeare quotes and thereby perpetuating the stereotype that submariners don't know anything about literature, but decided not to.

Movie Review: "Cloverfield"

I succumbed to the hype and went to see "Cloverfield" today. All in all, I'd say it's the 2nd best movie I've seen so far this month -- "Juno" was quite a bit better, and "Atonement" was infinitely worse. I didn't feel like I wasted my money or time seeing this one.

Basically, it's a combination of "Godzilla" and "Blair Witch Project" set in post-9/11 NYC. I didn't really like "Blair Witch" and I viscerally hated "Godzilla". Both films were similar in that I really didn't care if the main characters lived or not (for "Godzilla", I was actively rooting for the lizard to eat the annoying stars). It was kind of the same here -- the "heroes" were vacuous 20-somethings whom I would mock and belittle were I to interact with them in the real world, and as they made dumber and dumber decisions (all for a noble cause, though) I found myself caring less and less if they lived (although the beginning of the film gave a pretty good indication of their fate).

Even with the character likeability issue, I thought the film still worked. Monster(s) straight out of "Starship Troopers" were CGI marvels, and the jerky camera-work (intentional) made you use your imagination to fill in the blanks. The military came off as pretty competent -- sure, some of them yelled at the main characters, but it was understood that they deserved to be berated.

The movie ended fairly abruptly, although it was fairly clear to me why that had to be. A lot of people waited around until the credits were done, but all they apparently got was a garbled voice -- the mystery of which may be explained here. If you want any more spoilers, you can go to the Wiki. (If you go to the see it without reading spoilers first, just remember to pay close attention to the sky during the scene at the end where they're on the ferris wheel.)

My wife and teenage son didn't like the movie as much as I did. My wife gave it a "1" (though not "the finger" -- she said it had enough positive elements to avoid that stigma); my son gave it a "2" (all ratings out of "5") and had this to say via IM from our family room while I was typing this (capitalization and punctuation inserted by parent):

"I liked their monster concept, but the first-person complete rip-off of Blair Witch Project got boring.
I felt like I'd seen the concept executed well once but didn't need to see it again."

Not very good news for the movie's execs, seeing as how my son is smack in the middle of their target demographic. For me, I give it 3 Uncomfortably Vivid 9/11 Reminders out of five.

Update 0524 23 Jan 2008: ninme really liked the movie.

Movie Review: Transformers

Finally -- a summer movie that almost lives up to the hype. I've enjoyed fighting robots ever since I watched Battlebots with my sons back when I was Eng on the Jimmy Carter, so I had high hopes for Transformers. Unlike with the other "big" summer movies so far, I wasn't disappointed (unlike this reviewer, who thought its theme of "victory through sacrifice" was too militaristic).

First, my complaints about the movie -- there were some continuity issues (the hot girlfriend's nail polish didn't match from minute to minute), and there were way too many 4-star Admirals (in SDBs, no less) standing watch in the NMCC. While the robot fighting scenes were pretty cool, they didn't do any Matrix-style slow motion that would have been appreciated by the techie portion of the audience. They also don't explain the apparent technology the robots use to make themselves (and especially their cube-shaped power generator) impossibly smaller when they're transformed compared to when they're in robot form. Mass is clearly not being conserved here.

On the good side, the military guys on the ground came across as the kick-ass defenders of freedom that we all know and love. (This helps explain why the regular Hollywood-type reviewers don't seem to like the movie very much.) There were a surprising number of really funny scenes -- in fact, those scenes were what made the movie. It's a film that movie-goers of all ages (up to probably 50) will like -- as long as they like explosions. Overall, I give it four conservation-of-mass-law-violating-robots out of five.

Movie Review: "There Will Be Blood"

I figured that since I'd already seen two of the movies nominated for "Best Picture" for the Oscars, I should try to see the other three so I can make a good decision about which one I think should win. So, I went tonight to see "There Will Be Blood", a story of a California oilman in the early 20th century.

Daniel Day-Lewis did an incredible job in the lead role; I'm sure he'll win the "Best Actor" Oscar, and deservedly so. The movie itself had long periods, including the first 5 minutes or so, with no real dialogue; this was a somewhat effective vehicle for introducing the character's motivations, although you never do learn why the main character hates everyone.

When I watch a period piece, I fully expect to feel like I've learned something about the era being portrayed. This film seemed to be fairly effective in covering, on a micro level, both California oil wildcatting and the early 1900s religious revival. The old towns, transportation, and living arrangements are what I'd always kind of imagined they'd look like, so I enjoyed them -- anything to reinforce my own worldview.

The movie was long, at almost three hours. I had to go to the bathroom about 2 1/2 hours in, during what I thought would make a good climatic "confrontation" scene with the faith healer who had earlier humiliated Day-Lewis' oilman. During my time away, I was wondering why the movie was titled as it was -- there hadn't been lots of unnecessary murders by a ruthless madman like I was expecting. When I made my way back to the theater, I figure something must have happened to make the audience mad; most of them had left, leaving behind only obnoxious teenagers. Even worse, someone had stolen my coat! Deciding to stick it out until the end, I was surprised to see that the movie had apparently jumped forward to the present day. In a very Kafkaesque plot twist, it appeared that they were showing the oilman's descendents, who were dressed as ancient Greeks Spartans for some reason, kicking pop culture icons into a huge pit. I guess that's where they got the "Blood" in the title from. I can see now how the movie got its "Best Picture" nomination; I know artsy Hollywood-types go for weirdness like that. I didn't stay around for the end, so I don't know what happened after that.

Overall, for the part I saw, I give it 3 Stereotypically-Violent Oil Gushers out of five.

Movie Review: "Serenity"

Since it seems like I'm the last blogger who hasn't reviewed Serenity, there probably isn't much I can add, so I'll just give you the quick and dirty. Like Orson Scott Card, I thought that Serenity was the best sci fi movie I've ever seen. The acting was good, I cared about the characters and understood their motivations, and I didn't have to "suspend disbelief"as much as I normally do while watching science fiction.

This is a movie for adults. Unless your kids are huge sci fi fans, they probably won't like it too much. You really need to pay attention to understand what's going on, but if you do, you're in for a treat. You might be wondering why the ship's Captain talks and acts like a Western gunslinger... trust me, don't over-analyze, just sit back and enjoy it, because it works.

In most good movies, the plot drives towards one line that "has to be said" -- the emotional payoff for the movie. I always enjoy watching how various directors handle this -- lots of them mess it up. In Serenity, when that time came, I knew exactly what was going to happen, but I still let out an involuntary gasp of joy when it played out (much to SubBasket's amusement).

Basically, Serenity is what movie should be -- a piece of art that totally immerses the target audience in the world it creates. If you like sci fi at all, go see the movie (but hurry; based on the disappointing box office, it might not be around for long).

Going deep...

Movie Review: Spiderman 3

I'll put it out right at the top of this review -- I'm not a big Spiderman fan. The first two movies were OK; they just weren't something I'd go out of my way to see again. The fighting parts are always pretty good from a "guy" standpoint, but Peter Parker always seemed too whiny, and to be honest I don't really think that Kirsten Dunst is all that hot.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by this 3rd chapter of Spiderman. Without giving too much away, the best part was the humor that they added; I especially liked the undereye mascara that "dark" Peter Parker wore -- it reminded me of the Gothkids in one of my favorite South Park episodes. The special effects were a lot better than in the first two movies; you didn't look at it and say, "Hey, I can almost see the blue screen". On the minus side, I really didn't need to ponder over the existential angst of the bad guys; I just wanted them to destroy things in interesting ways. I was about to give this movie a "4" until the last 10 minutes, but all the anti-climactic mushy stuff knocked it down a point. Bottom line: I give this movie three geeky superheroes out of five.

Movie Review: Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix

We went to the midnight showing of the new Harry Potter movie last night; it looks like it's going to be pretty popular. There were 5 (!) sold-out midnight showings at my local suburban theater, and something like 17 showings over in Boise last night. The audience for my particular showing seemed to attract all the screeching teenage girls in the Valley, but I only missed a few lines of dialogue, so it wasn't that bad. (SubBasket, on the other hand, had a hard time dealing with the concept of the giggling girls flirting with her sons.)

Without putting out too many spoilers, I can say I really liked the movie. After the horrible disappointment that was the last HP movie, this one moved back towards the style of the superior third installment. Since they took an 800+ page book and crammed it into a 2 1/4 hour movie, they obviously had to cut a lot of good stuff out; some of the more frustrating cuts were getting rid of any Quidditch and the "Ron and Hermione become prefects" plotlines. Still, I thought that they included most of the vital parts of the book -- the use of newspaper headlines to advance the story worked pretty well.

I was especially interested to see how they were going to handle the "battle royale" at the end; I figured they'd have a hard time showing on film the internal struggle Harry had to go through to defeat Voldemort's attempted "possession" of him. They ended up doing a pretty good job, and even someone who hadn't read the book will probably be able to understand what's going on. I especially liked how they handled the magical duels between the adult wizards and witches -- there wasn't any "stand back, I'm going to do magic" feeling, they just went at it full bore (like you'd expect them to do in "real life").

They handled the funnier parts well, and the actress who played Luna Lovegood stole every scene she was in. One kind of disconcerting sequence came in the scene where the three principles were discussing Harry's first kiss -- it looked like the actress playing Hermione dropped out of character and started cracking up, but they decided to keep it in the film for some reason. It almost had the feeling of a mid-film blooper reel.

Overall, it was well worth staying up late for. While I still haven't decided whether or not it's better than Prisoner of Azkaban, it's definitely one of the top two HP films. I give it four screeching teenage female film-goers out of five.

Movie Review: Shrek The Third

Much the same as with the Spiderman franchise, I admit I'm not the biggest fan of the Shrek movies. Sure, the first two had some pretty funny parts, but I never really found the Donkey character amusing as much as just plain annoying, and I've always had a real problem enjoying any movie featuring the "talents" of Antonio Banderas.

Still, I had high hope for the third of what will probably be an endless series of Shrek movies, Shrek the Third. The previews had some funny scenes, and I figured they'd continue, or even improve, on the cultural references that make the movies worthwhile for adults. They also brought Eric Idle on board, and I figured he'd probably be pretty funny.

I went to the 6 o'clock showing at my neighborhood cineplex; the theater was about 2/3 full. First, the good -- the computer-generated animation was incredible; I sometimes forgot I was watching CGI. Now, the bad. The movie is billed as a comedy, but at the end I realized that I hadn't laughed once. It turns out that essentially all the funny parts were in the trailers, so I didn't see anything that surprised me in a humorous way. The target audience (8 year old kids) seemed quite amused, but even my teenage sons didn't really see any real humor in the story. The new characters (Merlin and Arthur) were incredibly badly written, and actively detracted from any enjoyment I had watching the film.

This is a movie to watch in the theater if you're a really big Mike Myers or Eddie Murphy fan, or if you have pre-teen kids who like Shrek. Overall, the only thing that keeps me from giving this movie "the finger" is the incredible animation; because of that, it gets two unfunny ogres out of five.

DVD Review: "Sons of Provo"

Since there seems to be a dearth of submarine news, I figured I'd fall back on my old standby, movie reviews. (I previously reviewed Stealth and The Brothers Grimm, with fairly negative results.) Unfortunately, I haven't been to any movies lately; I did see a new DVD last week, though, so I'll review that.

Sons of Provo is the latest in a recent string of Mormon-themed comedies. Wait! Don't click away -- I'm serious; Mormons really do make, and watch, comedies. Plus, I'm looking to do an unscientific experiment, and I'll need your help. (More on that later.) Mormon film-making has been fast and furious lately, and the comedies they're putting out are really good. (The best of the bunch, IMHO, is Singles Ward. Although Napoleon Dynamite doesn't deal with Mormon themes explicitly, the producers are Mormon, and there are enough "inside references" where you can see that LDS types were involved.)

Back to Sons of Provo. Did you like This is Spinal Tap? Sons of Provo is in the same genre -- a "mockumentary" of a band that just doesn't get it. In this case, the movie features three Mormon "boy-band" members (Group name: "Everclean") who sing horribly funny songs, and don't understand just how ridiculous the lyrics are. Here are some examples:

"Love Me, But Don't Show Me" (sung to the tune of any Back Street Boys ballad)
"These two weeks together have been the sweetest of my life,
My hearts prayer was answered when you agreed to be my wife.
Your love's like a cancer, girl, cuz I got no resistance,
There's only one answer girl: You got to keep your distance!
"Love me, but don't show me.
I want our wedding night to be right.
Miss me, but don't kiss me.
If we start to makin' out girl,
You won't be wearin' white."

And the equally horrible "Sweet Spirit":
"She, doesn't turn your head when she walks down the hall.
She, may not be the slender beauty fair and tall.
She, has some acne scars that populate her skin.
But she has beauty emanating deeply from within.
"Ooo, sweet spirit, You're so.... nice.
You may not appear it, But your soul's a pearl of great price.
You're such a good person, Sincere and true.
You just keep rehearsin' And one day you might say: "I do." (That would be so nice for you) "

Finally, the unabashedly ridiculous "Spiritchal As Me":
"I like to take notes in Sacrament Meeting
But I'm not just some regular guy.
I've memorized the names of every Prophet and Apostle
And I've never told a lie.
When I'm eating lunch in the school cafeteria I bow my head and pray out loud.
I'm so humble and meek,
And possessing such heavenly qualities makes me proud.
"Maybe, someday, You will see
You could be as Spiritchal as me..."

Trust me, it's hilarious. Now, here's my unscientific test. I think a lot of the jokes in the movie are things that only Mormons would know are funny, whereas others (the deaf/mute vocal music teacher) should give anyone a chuckle. What I'd like is for some non-Mormon reader to rent the film at your local video store (the closer you are to Utah and Idaho, probably the better chance you'll have that it'll be available). Drop me a line and let me know if you thought it was a good flick. I'm betting you will, but I could be wrong, and the scene where the young woman, interviewed leaving the concert because rap music "doesn't come from a very nice place", is only funny to the target audience.

Bottom line: I give Sons of Provo 4 plural wives out of 5.

Update 0217 27 Sep: Apropos of nothing, I noticed when I was checking my referral log that my review of Stealth mentioned above is the #2 result on Yahoo Search for "Jessica Biel's belly button". Sweet...

'Mighty' Movie Reviews: "Evan Almighty" And "A Mighty Heart"

SubBasket and I saw two movies this weekend -- "A Mighty Heart" on Friday night with our daughter, and "Evan Almighty" on Saturday afternoon with our boys. While they're clearly intended for different audiences, I felt I didn't waste my money seeing either one of them.

"A Mighty Heart" tells the story of the Daniel Pearl kidnapping and murder through the eye of his wife. While people are talking up Angelina Jolie for an Oscar, I thought that she should only deserve it if she was supposed to be playing an emotionless character for 99% of the movie. What I liked about the film is that I think it did a good job of portraying Karachi, Pakistan, the way I always thought the city would look like. In other words, you won't see a lot of people who see the movie saying, "Hey, let's vacation on the Pakistani coast this year." It's hard for a movie to keep the suspense up when you know how it's going to end, and this one didn't really do a very good job of it. But, because of the intensity and assumed accuracy of the "travelogue from hell" aspect of the film, I give it three kidnapping-suspects-hanging-from-the-ceiling out of five.

There's been a bit of controversy regarding "Evan Almighty" from the Hollywood chattering classes. The incomparable ninme provides a link to a review by a Hollywood blogger who claims the movie has a "Christian message" -- even though Jesus isn't mentioned once in the film! I didn't really like "Bruce Almighty" (I'm not a big Jim Carrey fan, except for his In Living Color stuff), so I was prepared to not like this film (even though I really do like Steve Carell). In the end, I was pleasantly surprised -- it was a whole lot funnier than Shrek 3 (which I recognize isn't saying very much). As long as you go in with moderate expectations, and enjoy funnyanimals who poop all over people and hit them in the crotch, you'll like this movie OK. I give it three spitting llamas out of five.