The Rock (1996)

The Rock does have a plot.  Y'see, there's this general who thinks his men have been treated badly, so he takes over Alcatraz and holds San Francisco hostage with chemical weapons.  The only hope we have is a guy who's been in prison for decades and some geek who...

Oh forget it.  The plot is absurd.  But who cares?  This isn't a fine drama or a believable character study.  This movie exists for one purpose: loud, high-speed action and explosions.  The Rock thus is the penultimate '90's action film.

It was directed by Michael Bay.  This would usually be a loud, obnoxious point against the film.  However, this is one of the two or three films that Bay's done that actually works.  It works for several reasons: it doesn't take itself too seriously, the actors are of fine quality (excepting Nicholas Cage), and the screenplay is phenomenal.  The script is full of wit and humor, with one-liners and zingers that help keep the movie feeling light and fun, while at the same time keeping it out of the realm of camp.  (for example, when told there is a "situation" that Mason -Sean Connery's character -might help with, he replies, "And what might that be?  I've been in jail longer than Nelson Mandela, so maybe you want me to run for President.")  I must warn you though; this movie has quite a bit of the "colorful" language.

Sean Connery carries the film, basically reprising his role as James Bond (a much older, much more foul-mouthed Bond).  Nicholas Cage is his usual, "shouldn't be working as an actor" self, but he does seem to be having fun.  And Ed Harris is a great conflicted bad guy/good guy, trying desperately to achieve his good ends through bad means without losing control of the situation.

But of course the real star is the action.  And there is lots of it.  There's the unforgettable Hummer vs Ferrari chase through the streets of San Francisco, and the many shootouts and explosions on Alcatraz itself.  It's all done well, and makes for a very exciting, very fun flick.

So ignore the plot holes.  Ignore Nicholas Cage.  Disregard the cheesy moments or the over-the-top and unbelievable elements.  Just enjoy The Rock.

Entertainment: 9/10
Artistic Value: 2/10
Technical Merit: 6/10

Overall: 6/10

P.S. Content warning: lots of death, mayhem, and violence.  Grizzly deaths abound, and strong language ensues.

An American in Paris (1951)

For clarity's sake, I'm allowed to like both Alien and An American in Paris.  Both are fantastic at what they do.  They just do very different things.  One scares the daylights out of you, the other will invariably make you smile anytime.

Gene Kelly was at the peak of his game with An American in Paris.  He's witty, charming, bombastic, free-spirited, and contagiously happy.  He's after one girl, while another girl is after him.  The girl he wants is the fiancee of a friend, while the girl who wants him happens to be his patron (he's an artist).

But the movie isn't about the plot.  This movie works because of three things: 1) The music is entirely Gershwin, and the use of his music is inspired.  2) The dancing, especially during the ballet piece, which is by far the best dancing sequence ever put on film.  3) Gene Kelly.  Honestly, I'd watch Gene Kelly work in anything, even in his garden.  I know that sounds all stalker-ish, and I'm willing to accept such accusations.  Kelly simply was a master on film.  He knew how to act, how to sing, and how to dance -the Hollywood triple threat.  And he does all three with a seemingly effortless precision; I say "seemingly," because I know that he worked dog hard and was a notorious perfectionist.

An American in Paris is the feel-good, happy, all-singing, all-dancing great film that won Best Picture.  Watch it.  's wonderful. 's marvelous.

Entertainment:  6/10
Artistic Value:  6/10
Technical Merit: 8/10

Overall: 7/10

The Departed (2006)

Never have I disagreed more with the Academy than when The Departed won four Oscars.  Truth be told, 2006 was not a very fabulous year for really fantastic film (there were a few, but not many).  However, none of the best films of that year were even nominated for Best Picture.  So instead of something good winning, we got The Departed instead.

Ok, to be fair it wasn't bad.  In fact, as a movie it worked on many levels.  It was fun to see such a great cast working together, and the last little bit at the end with Mark Wahlberg made the whole film worthwhile.  But the errors started piling up, from writing shortcomings to massive continuity goofs.  The sheer amount of filthy language (including every possible racial slur) and intense violence is enough to put anyone off.  To be honest, some things were so bad (perhaps "lazy" is a better word) in the technical aspects of the movie that the awards for best editing and direction completely baffled me.  "Oscar," I started to think, "must be in on the take."

The 79th Academy Awards was such a joke, and the punchline was The Departed.  So many better movies were available: Pan's Labyrinth, The Prestige, Cars, and Blood Diamond all come to mind (ok, so I'd have been just as upset at a Blood Diamond win, but hey, it WAS a better movie than The Departed.).

Bottom line: Not a bad movie, but should never have been Best Picture of any year.

Entertainment: 5/10
Artistic Value: 6/10
Technical Merit: 4/10

Overall: 5/10

Hoosiers (1986)

This little gem starring Gene Hackman is hands down the best basketball film ever, and perhaps the best sports film ever.  Also, it has fantabulous '80's synthesized music.

About an underdog tiny high school basketball team in Indiana that makes it to the State Finals, Hoosiers is everything you could hope from a sports film.  The actors clearly know the sport and actually play it, so nothing looks "wrong."  You care about the characters, and each is developed in individual ways.  Plus, the film does a great job exploring both small town politics and how a sport can become so important to people that it overwhelms tiny, insignificant things like truth and justice.

Hackman brings his usual firebrand style of acting, and it fits his character perfectly.  He has many great lines, and forms the heart of the film.  As Hackman shines, so also does Hoosiers.  But unfortunately, we also see why Hackman plays so few romantic roles in film.  His kissing scene is painful in a "slobber all over her" kind of way.  The other standout is of course Dennis Hopper, who plays the town drunk who is given a second chance.

Hoosiers has heart.  It's often overlooked, but hey, Goliath might have overlooked David too.

Entertainment: 8/10
Artistic Value: 7/10
Technical Merit: 6/10 (loses a whole point for the music!)

Overall: 7/10

P.S.  As a sports movie, and not compared to other films outside the genre, Hoosiers might score a 9/10.

The Dark Knight Rises (additional thoughts)

I recently broke down and bought The Dark Knight Rises on bluray.  I'm just such a sucker for Batman that I chose to overlook all the flaws that I remembered and give it another try.  I'm glad I did, but boy I need to revisit a few things.  Specifically, I'm gonna need to revisit the score I gave it.

So this is not a second review.  But rather just a few extra thoughts to add to the original review.

First: I'm confused by the airjacking/kidnapping scene at the beginning.  The whole point was to abduct the Russian scientist, right?  So to do that, Bane gets himself turned over to the CIA at the same time the scientist is so he can break out and capture the guy.  Straightforward, right?  Well, not exactly.  Here's my problem: the only way for Bane to be turned over to the CIA without the CIA knowing it was actually Bane they were getting is to have the guy who turned the captives over to the CIA actually work for Bane.  Follow?  The guy delivering the captives (and the scientist) to the CIA had to work for Bane, otherwise the whole scheme wouldn't work.  CONCLUSION: Bane's big plot to kidnap the scientist involves three steps: 1) kidnap the scientist. 2) turn him over to the CIA, along with Bane himself. 3) attempt a daring and risky mid-air second kidnapping.  So tell me, why was the whole plane kidnapping thing necessary at all?

Second, I hated the second-in-command of the GCPD.  You know, the guy who lets Bane get away so he can try to capture Batman.  His character is one note, and that note is "try to be as wrong as possible all the time, and annoying to boot."  He's not quite as bad as the guy in Iron Man 2, but he's trying.

Third: The Dark Knight Rises has very few standout, just plain excellent moments.  Most of it is just plain ordinary.  The best part is when the gangsters try to cheat catwoman; Anne Hathaway simply steals the scene.

Overall, the movie is an exercise in adequacy pretending to be excellence.  How does Batman find Catwoman when she's being attacked?  Pure luck?  Why does every fight feel so over-choreographed, and un-exciting?  How does the fact that an autopilot is fixed allow Batman to teleport instantly out of the blast range of a nuclear bomb?  Why does the end turn Bane into a puppy dog, and then dispose of him without fanfare?  Why is John's real name Robin?

Repeat viewings of The Dark Knight continue to elevate that film.  It will go down in the books as the best Batman film yet, and perhaps the best that ever will be made.  The Dark Knight Rises just plain isn't on the same level.

Therefore, here are my new ratings for the movie:

Entertainment: Old score -5    New score -4
Artistic Value: Old score -6    New score -3 (what was I thinking before?)
Technical Merit: Old score -6    New score -5

Overall: Old score -5/10    New score -4/10

The Sandlot (1993)

Little boys, baseball, and a great big dog.  This is the movie that gets all three very right.

Now, there are lots of movies about baseball.  And lots of movies about growing up, and even a few about dogs.  But this is the one where all three come together in a parfait of perfection.  You see, Smalls is a kid out of his element.  He's just moved to a new town and has a new step dad.  He has no friends and no interests outside of his engineering tinker toys.

But then he's noticed by Benny, the leader of the gang of kids that play ball down at the sandlot.  We all need a friend like Benny, someone who will help us, teach us new things, stick up for us, and genuinely take an interest in us.  And Smalls simply flourishes because of Benny's friendship, and all the other friends he makes because of him.

And then Smalls does something monumentally stupid, and the gang spends the rest of the film trying to get a baseball back from the Beast, the neighborhood "gorilla-dog-thing" that is the stuff of legend.

Oh, this is a gem of a film.  Granted, the acting at times is stilted.  Sure, not every line is fantastic -some are straight out corny.  But this is a movie that understands how a little boy thinks.  It understands a little boy's first crush (Wendy Peffercorn!) and how a boy can become obsessed over a game or a project (like a baseball recovery).  It understands how boys can do stupid things like think chewing tobacco makes them macho, then go on fast rides (Tequila!).  It understands how boys have an imagination to make a big dog into a Beast, how they wonder at fireworks, how they boast and brag and exagerate, and how they simply desire with a deep earnest longing to be accepted.

The interactions of the boys themselves are what really lifts this movie.  Never again will you have a Smore without thinking of The Sandlot.  Never again will you be able to go to a public pool without thinking of the line "I have swum here every summer of my adult life!"  Because of The Sandlot you will know what an "L7 Weenie" is, you will know that PF Flyers are the only shoe guaranteed to make a boy run faster and jump higher, and you will know that there is no greater insult than "you play ball like a GIRL!"

It's a sweet movie.  It's funny.  It won't win awards, but it will win your heart.

Entertainment: 7/10
Artistic Value: 5/10
Technical Merit: 5/10

Overall: 7/10

Foreign Correspondent (1940)

There is sometimes a fine line between movie and propaganda.  Anyone who tells you that film producers do not have an agenda to promote, that they just want to "entertain," needs to have a head readjustment.  And they need to see Alfred Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent.

Released in 1940, Foreign Correspondent is Hitchcock's argument that America should get involved in World War 2.  At that time we had the policy that the war was Europe's problem.  Hitchcock saw things differently; he was after all a British citizen who was only recently come to America to make movies.  He had a personal motivation to see help come to England, and he couldn't quite understand why America was dragging its feet on what seemed to be a problem for all people everywhere.

So Foreign Correspondent was made, a simple film with a simple message.  As a film, it is one of the most streamlined of Hitchcock's works.  It progresses rapidly, following the exploits of a newly commissioned newspaper correspondent.  He travels from America to Europe, where war is brewing.  There he meets a girl in a peace charity and falls in love, notices windmills in Holland that spin the wrong way, witnesses an assassination, finds out the dead man is actually alive, and generally makes himself a thorn in the side of a group of German spies.  Oh, and he discovers that the ringleader of the group is really...oh, but I can't spoil every twist in a Hitchcock film for you, can I?

Simply put, the plot is rather straightforward and understandable.  The action is fun and exciting, full of chases, tension, and even a plane crash, and the movie is genuinely entertaining.  But as in any well-directed film, it's the little things that stand out.  For example, our hero, while traveling from one window to the next on the roof of the "Hotel Europe" accidentally breaks the neon in the sign, making the words now read "Hot Europe."  Very appropriate.

The use of humor is also quite well done.  Our hero's name is Johnny Jones -a perfectly normal American name.  However, the newspaper boss things such a name would not stand out, and thus gives his reporter a new handle: Humphry Haverstock.  This of course becomes a running gag.  Further, when declaring their love for each other, the main characters seem almost to realize they are in a movie: him "I'm in love with you, and I want to marry you."  Her: "I'm in love with you, and I want to marry you."  Him: "Hmm, that cuts down our love scene quite a bit, doesn't it?"  The whole relationship is almost a parody of Hollywood insta-love, as though Hitchcock was required to have a love story in the movie but wanted to get it out of the way as quickly as possible to focus on his theme.

There is also some genuinely good and clever writing, decent acting, and a plane crash effect that -while rather tame by today's standards -was revolutionary then.

I would say that the biggest flaw in the film is also its most memorable part, and it happens right at the end.  Johnny (sorry, Humphry Haverstock) has earned notoriety for his reporting, but is trapped in London during the Blitz.  He is in the middle of a radio report going live to America when the lights go out and the bombs start dropping again from German planes.  So Johnny, knowing America can probably still hear him, begins to talk off the cuff: "All that noise you hear isn't static, it's death coming to London.  Yes, they're coming here now.  You can hear the bombs falling on the street and the homes.  Don't tune me out, hang on a while -this is a big story and you're part of it.  It's too late to do anything here now except stand in the dark and let them come... as if the lights were all out everywhere, except in America.  Keep those lights burning, cover them with steel, ring them with guns, build a canopy of battleships and bombing planes around them.  Hello America!  Hang on to your lights: they're the only lights left in the world."

And then the movie ends to a patriotic rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner."  I kid you not, the whole thing is as patriotic at the end as Sam the Eagle, and I can't help but think "Hello Hitchcock, your propaganda is showing!"  The message is clear: Europe waited too long, listening to evil men who cried "peace, peace" when they only ever worked toward war.  Now the inaction of the past has reduced England to standing in the dark and waiting for bombs to fall.  America can't do that; they need to wake up and get ready for a fight, or the whole world will plunge into darkness.

This ending to the film is all very stirring and a fitting finale.  However, I still regard it as a moviemaking error, because it just seems like an overreach.  But I then try to put myself in Hitchcock's shoes in 1940, and I see the world falling apart, and America asleep.  And you know, I'd try as hard as possible to wake them up too!

Entertainment: 7/10
Artistic Value: 7/10
Technical Merit: 7/10

Overall: 7/10

Seven Samurai (1954)

What can one say about perfect movies?  How can I begin to praise one of the best films ever made?  This movie is Japan's Citizen Kane, a movie that redefined movies.  It is by far the most far-reaching of director Akira Kurisawa's films, gaining success well beyond Japan and highly influencing many other movies.  In America the story was remade into The Magnificent Seven.  But as good as The Magnificent Seven is, Seven Samurai towers above it.  It is a monumental movie in every way. 

This is a Samurai film (seriously, if you didn't guess that by the title then you need help) that is highly influenced by the Hollywood western, and which then subsequently went on to influence the Hollywood western just as highly.  It is often imitated, frequently referenced, and always held in reverence.  Seven Samurai (Original title: Shichinin no Samurai) is about as close to a perfect work of film making as may be made.

Which is why my head nearly exploded when I heard that there are rumors that a direct remake is being worked on, slated for 2014 release, called The Seven Samurai.  This would be a sacrilege of the highest order.  Want to make the story into a western?  Fine.  Use the idea to film a science fiction epic?  Sure, I'd love to see it.  Try to do a musical version?  I'd question your sanity, but go ahead and try.  But to think you can improve on it?  At this point I cry foul.  It's like saying you could improve on The Godfather or Casablanca.

 Here's an idea Hollywood: leave the great films alone and try to make something original.

Anyway, back to Seven Samurai.  Let's discuss how things can't get much better, shall we?

Seven Samurai is the chief example of an ensemble action film.  The idea is get together a diverse group of people, with various motivations, attitudes, personalities, and so on, in order to defeat evil and save the day.  Yet no matter how divergent the characters, they come together, meshing as friends and blood brothers under great strain.  This same concept is much imitated, being used in such films as Saving Private Ryan; The Great Escape; The Dirty Dozen; The Expendables and so on.  But Seven Samurai is somehow able to develop each character without a single one devolving into stereotypes.

Which leads us to the cast.  Samurai is built on the strength of the titular seven, so it is rather important that they work for the film.  And work they do.  The seven are anchored by the acting skill of Takashi Shimura, a veteran of Japanese cinema and many, many other Kurosawa directed movies.  Seriously, this guy is in everything Japanese during that period, from Godzilla right through Ikiru.  Shimura plays Kambei, an aged Samurai and master tactician, one who embodies the highest ideals of the Samurai (more on this in a bit).

The other standout is Toshiro Mifune who plays Kikuchiyo, a man out of his caste.  Born a farmer's son, Kikuchiyo has rejected such a life and is trying to pass himself off as a Samurai, a task not easily done.  Kikuchiyo is brash, full of fire, loud, and rude.  He is everything a Samurai is not, except for his heart.  Coupled with Kambei, the two characters play off each other and the rest of the cast amazingly well.  The rest of the actors are wonderful as well, doing stellar work and earning the praise they've garnered.

In Seven Samurai a small peasant village hires, you guessed it, seven samurai to protect them from bandits.  It is here that we begin to see a bit of the theme.  You see, farmers in feudal Japan had a particular lot in life. They were the backbone of society, growing the food that fed all people.  But they had no option for defending themselves.  Should the higher casts demand something, the rules of society dictate that the farmers comply.  So farmers often bore the brunt of the system's abuses.  Lords would heavily tax them.  Samurai, the warrior caste that comprised about 5% of the population, would come and take whatever they would want.  Farmers were simply expected to endure.

But there is only so much a human being can endure.  Once bandits enter the mix, pillaging the crops and stealing their women, the strain becomes too much.  So they seek for protectors, samurai who would help them fight off the bandits when they return.  The farmers have begun to reject society's expectation; they want to stand up for themselves.

The only problem is this: how will a poor farming town afford to hire samurai?  They have no money to offer, and there is nothing else they have to give that might entice talented warriors.  The solution offered by the village elder?  "Find hungry samurai!"

So what kind of samurai will you find?  Will the ones you hire even be worth the rice you give?  Well, whether by chance -or fate -the farmers find samurai who will help.  Kambei is the first they encounter, and he is introduced in a way that furthers the theme.  A thief holes himself up in a barn with a young child as a hostage.  Kambei offers to rescue the child, asking only for a monk to lend him his robes and shave his head.

Right there we have the unthinkable.  Samurai are a privileged caste, even when they do not serve a liege-lord (those samurai without a feudal master are called "ronin," or a free samurai.  This is not a good situation for a samurai, as they then become either mercenaries or bandits.  All seven of our samurai are ronin.).  The physical characteristics that distinguish a samurai are twofold: first, there is the sword -only samurai were permitted in that society to bear a weapon.  Second, samurai wore a topknot in their hair.  So the incredulity of the people, including the farmers, is understandable when we see Kambei cutting off his topknot, having his head shaved like a monk, and giving up his sword in his attempt to rescue the boy.

He has rejected every characteristic that marks a samurai.  He has, in a way, killed himself to save another.  Here then is the message: the true samurai is not the one who is simply born in a caste, nor the one who looks the part or carries the badge of honor.  The true samurai is marked by honor, not by symbol, and the honor is defined as the willingness to protect others, even at great cost to himself, even at the cost of his life.

The farmers ask, and Kambei accepts the task of protecting the village.  He begins to recruit using a rather odd selling point: "A difficult battle is coming leading neither to riches nor position.  Will you join us?"  How could such an offer be accepted?  Yet accept they do, bringing the total to seven protectors for the village.  You see, samurai, at heart, are supposed to serve the people.  Once again the message rings out: a true samurai does not work for reward nor recognition; a true samurai sacrifices that others might live.

The middle part of the film is the training of the farmers to fight and preparing the defense.  And then the battle begins in earnest, encompassing several days.

These battle sequences are amazingly well-done.  The camera work, the editing, the stunts, everything comes together in perfect fashion.  The final battle in the rain remains one of the greatest works of cinema.  Everything is perfectly framed, perfectly paced, and perfectly tense.  Quite clearly this is not a movie where good guys survive simply because they are good, and bad guys lose simply because they are bad.  The stakes are incredibly high, the action intense, and the cinematography beautiful.

But overall, the film remains remarkably human.  As the final battle winds to a dizzying conclusion, as enemy and friend alike fall, Katsushiro -the youngest of the seven -runs around in frantic confusion; "Where are the bandits?!!  Where are the bandits?!!"  To this Kambei replies with a gruff "All dead!"  Hearing this reply, Katsushiro breaks down.  He wails and weeps in a surprising display of raw emotion.  In this cry can be heard the relief of victory, the lament for fallen comrades, and even a touch of remorse that so many enemies had to die.  He is the warrior who protects the innocent, yet regrets the need for force.

The final shot is one of the greatest of all time.  Four warriors lie in graves on the hillside marked by swords, while three still live down below, having survived the battle to fight again.  They have not earned riches nor fame.  The farmers themselves have gone on with life, replanting the fields and looking forward to better days to come.  The farmers now can defend themselves and fear nothing; they owe everything to these samurai who have fought and died for them, yet at this final moment the samurai seem forgotten.

So Kambei concludes with one of the most wrenching, ironic closing lines a movie ever had: "In the end, we lost this battle too.  What I mean is, the victory belongs to these peasants, not to us."  Four of the seven lie dead.  The others will pass away sooner or later, whether in battle or by natural death.  But the farmers ascend, the people flourish.  An entire caste will give itself for the other; the samurai diminish, but the people will rise.

We must also remember that Akira Kurosawa made his masterpiece at a pivotal point in Japanese history.  The Allied occupation of Japan was over following Japan's loss in world war 2, and the population was trying to understand itself in the light of its history.  The Bushido code, the way of the warrior the samurai followed, had failed them, hadn't it?  They lost the war, and now will they lose their identity?  Will their great history and heroes fade away into a lost and obsolete past?

With Seven Samurai Kurosawa seeks to cast a new ideal, to reinterpret the failure of the world war.  Bushido did not fail, the samurai ideal was not found lacking; rather, the Bushido had been hijacked.  Kurosawa reinterpreted Bushido.  It should not be the WW2 concept of "might makes right."  It is not as a call to oppress; that is the abuse of the honorable ideal.  Rather, Kurosawa recast the samurai as an ideal defined by a higher honor.  Might does not make right; instead, what is right should be the only end might is used to defend.  The honorable warrior does not seek glory for himself; he seeks for the protection of the vulnerable.

Kurosawa found nothing lacking in the moral strength of his society; he instead found lacking the abuse and twisting of the ideal to suit political purpose.  With Seven Samurai he sought to tell a tale that would hold up a selfless sacrifice as the height of heroism.

And he succeeded marvelously.  Clearly, Kurosawa was a master of his craft, producing a moving, exciting, thought-provoking, and technically brilliant film.  His every decision seemed to be right, from every camera angle, to the close up shots (and there are many), to the editing techniques, everything came together beautifully.

Seven Samurai is a technical showpiece, easily achieving epic status.  The length also is epic, clocking in at about 207 minutes (3 hours and 27 minutes).  Remarkably, none of the titular samurai make their first appearance until a half hour into the film!  And yet there is not one part that seems to drag, not one moment out of place.  The action, when there is action, is full-throttle and thrilling.  The drama (and there is much) is clever, full of the depth of human emotion.  The humor is sprinkled in at perfect moments.

The acting is splendid, and full of neat touches (no doubt influenced by Kurosawa's direction).  For example, Kambei's hair grows over the course of the film after he has it shaved at the beginning.  As it grows, we will often see him absentmindedly rub his head, as though his scalp itches or he just misses the topknot.  It's the little touches such as those that help us relate to the characters and see their small quirks.

Needless to say, I urge everyone to see and love this film.  Yes, it is black and white.  Yes, it is in Japanese, with English subtitles.  Yes, it is long.  All these things seem to keep the average American from caring about great films.  Don't let it stop you.  This is as good as they come, a true masterpiece and work of art.  Seven Samurai is simultaneously one of the most entertaining, best constructed, and most important films of all time.

Entertainment: 10/10
Artistic Value: 10/10
Technical Merit: 10/10

Overall: 10/10

P.S.  If you want to own this movie, I highly recommend the Criterion Collection edition (picture to the right).  The restoration job Criterion did makes the whole film feel new again, giving us the original aspect ratio, a crisp and clean picture, and wonderful sound.  It's worth the extra few bucks.

Battleship (2012)

Someone, somewhere, thought it would be a good idea to attempt a movie based on the boardgame "Battleship."  Someone, somewhere, needed to tell them it was a bad idea.  The boardgame gives you no plot elements; it is simply pure strategy and luck.

So naturally it became a movie about aliens.  Aliens who are so incompetent that they can travel across the galaxy only to cripple themselves by hitting a satellite while landing.  Aliens that shoot pegs resembling the board game pegs at the navy.  Aliens that have a giant glowing weak spot that is ignored by the navy guys until the very end of the film.

Suffice to say, this movie is not much to write about.  Acting?  Lousy (even Liam Neeson, who evidently loves money enough to sign onto this wreck, but doesn't care enough even to try to sell his role).  Direction? gross misconduct.  Visual effects?  Forgettable.  Writing?  ...Are you kidding me?  These are the guys who thought it was a good idea!

Here's a better idea: stay away.

Entertainment: 4/10
Artistic Value: 2/10
Technical Merit: 4/10

Overall: 3/10

Brave (2012)

Saying that a movie is a lesser effort by Pixar is still a grand compliment.  Pixar is just that good of a studio, that everything they produce is simply expected to be stellar.

So Brave is good.  The animation is top-notch, the characters memorable, the crafting of the story is fantastic, and it is all-around fun.  Pixar shows once again that they know what makes a story work, and they know how to tell it.

But Brave  is simply not going to go down as one of Pixar's best.  While memorable, the characters were often also hollow stereotypes.  While a fun story, the plot never really surprised me, nor did it have amazing, over the top moments.  And the story, while very much a fairy tale, seems far too infused with modern values (some of them questionable) rather than the values of the time period in which it is set.  The entire movie is well-polished, but it is well-polished stainless steel, rather than Pixar's usual gold.

All told, I appreciated the themes of unintended consequences for foolish decisions, as well as themes of listening to others and the promotion of family unity.  But I didn't like having to see the bare behinds of the Scottish lords.  Come on Pixar, let's stay classy.

Entertainment: 5/10
Artistic Value: 6/10
Technical Merit 6/10

Overall: 6/10

Short Reviews

You know, not every movie deserves a sweeping review.  Not every movie needs a ton of ink spilled to explain just how wonderful, terrible, or awesomely average it is.

And I just don't have time to write full-scale reviews of every film I want to review.  Thus, to solve the issue, many of the reviews I will write from here out may be shorter, pithy, and straight to the point.

Of course, the films that are truly exceptional need a full review to explain just how they do things right.  And the really bad ones need a lot of ridicule to show how they fail (those are fun to write anyway).  It's just that in the grand scope of things, there are a lot of good and not-as-good average films that simply beg for a rating.  They need to have their chance to be viewed, discussed, and judged.

So I introduce the "Short Reviews" label.  These are the brief "what might be good and bad and memorable" reviews with a verdict at the end.  Enjoy.  And if you think a film I give a short review to needs a fuller treatment, shoot me a comment and tell me why.

Twilight (2008)

This will be the review that earns me the wrath of the teenage girls of the world.  At least the ones who like Twilight.  Because I hated Twilight.  It was a terrible story, terrible movie, and a terrible awful no good blight on popular culture.

Where to begin?  Let's start with the acting.  Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson star in this wreck of a film.  On the merits of their performance here, neither one deserves to act in any other film at any other time for any other conceivable reason -excepting perhaps a demonstration video on what not to do.  Neither one knows how to open their mouths and utter intelligible words.  Neither knows how to close their mouths when they are not talking.  And both seem to think that the way to act in love is to behave as though they have been stabbed in the stomach with sharpened steel rebar.  Only about 10 minutes into the movie I already hated the main characters, just on the strength (anemic weakness, really) of the acting.

What about direction?  This tripe is brought to us by Catherine Hardwicke, who deserves only blame and ridicule.  Terrible decisions abound, as does slow motion.

Writing?  Certainly the film has to benefit from being based on a hit book, right?  Wrong.  Oh so very, tragically wrong.  This is a movie (and book) about vampires, right?  No, it isn't.  Vampires have a long history in literature, owing most famously to Bram Stoker's Dracula.  Vampires are creatures of the night; not dead, but no longer living shadows of humanity.  Vampires are despicable creatures, evil to the core, stalking and preying upon humans using deception and stealth.  The horror of them stems from their nature, not from their viciousness.  But vampires, no matter their strengths, had specific weaknesses and in are built on a Christian mythology.  They have no power over Christ or the symbols of the church, and they are repelled by symbols of life, vibrancy, and hope.  Sunlight makes them weak and powerless, exposing them as being the hollow shells of darkness that they are and will eventually kill them.This is the Christian ethic at work: darkness is frightening and seemingly powerful, but the slightest light will destroy it and show it to be sham without strength.
The problem with Twilight's writing then begins from the very foundation of the story.  These are not vampires in Twilight.  They are so different from Stoker's ideas that we might as well call them something else entirely.  Our new name for them has to describe what they are like in the movie, so it has to be something not scary, not intimidating, not horrifying, but certainly stupid.  So I will call these idiot creatures "Sparklies" from here on out.

The problems only cascade downward from there.  Slow motion is substituted for suspense.  Posturing and looking idiotic is substituted for character development.  Shirts are optional.  And no one ever behaves in a rational way.

To save space, I'll just relate some of the so-bad-its-funny aspects of Twilight in bullet form:

• The male Sparklies wear mascara.  For some reason.  Maybe to look less intimidating, if it were possible for an effeminate sulking man-child to look less intimidating.
• Every teen guy is a blithering idiot.  And the new girl in school is instantly popular.  Like that happens.
• Why do Sparklies become human disco balls in the sun?  Because it isn't cool, it isn't neat, and it isn't something remotely needed.
• When Edward tells Bella they shouldn't be friends she takes that to mean that she should try really, really hard to be friends.
• Ok, I had the briefest moment of connection with Edward when he said that Claire de Lune was his favorite song.  But this moment was ruined when the next words out of his mouth were (and I swear I'm not making this up) "Hold on tight, spider monkey."  Then he scampered up a tree like a squirrel with Bella on his back.  This is inexplicably stupid.
• When bad guys show up to threaten the good guys, even though the good guys outnumber the bad guys they don't fight then.  Instead, the tactic is to split up so the bad guys have a chance.  Why?  Some people call it suspense, but in reality it is simply poor and lazy writing.  And frustrating.

When it comes to the values of the film, I don't even know where to start.  Let's just say I am terrified for teenage girls in our society who buy into this nonsense.  I submit the following observations:

• Bella falls in love with a guy who treats her like dirt to begin with.  He runs away in the middle of conversations, glares at her like a creepy stalker, and tells her he wants to eat her.  This is treated like romance.  I call it terror.
• The fact that Edward sneaks into Bella's room at night to watch her sleep is also treated as romantic.  Here's the reality: it's sexual harassment and creepy.  News flash to the teenage girls of the world!  If a guy says "I like watching you sleep" it doesn't mean "aww, how sweet!"  It means run away and call the cops!
• Edward tells Bella that he's killed people before.  She says (again, I'm not making this up) "I don't care."  Because murderers are people to hang out with?  Because this tiny detail of homicide shouldn't factor into who you spend your time with?  All is forgiven because "he's just so hot?" (public service announcement: I do not really think Robert Pattinson is hot.  That is all.)
• The Twilight description of the perfect guy is as follows: 1)he must be far older than the girl.  2) He must desire to hurt the girl.  3) He must constantly abandon the girl.  4)He must have homicidal tendancies he barely holds in check.  5) He breaks into her house to check on her, watch her sleep, and otherwise control her life.  6) He should have a cool car.

I mean, really?  That's romance?  No wonder our world is in a mess.

Here's the bottom line: Twilight is abhorrent dreck, a miserable sludge of a film.  I have not seen the sequels, so I can't comment on them.  However, at least the first one has to go down as one of the worst movies I've ever seen.  I honestly cannot think of a single thing it did right, or a single moment (other than the Debussy flicker of hope that was instantly quashed) that was even remotely intriguing.  

Avoid.  Avoid it like you would a Sparklie.

Entertainment: 1/10 

Artistic value: 1/10 

Technical merit: 1/10

Overall: 1/10

And just to be clear -I didn't like Twilight.

Revising my Reviews

Just as an FYI for anyone who happens to read my blog (hi mom!), I'll be going back through all the reviews I've done over the next few days and revising my ratings.  I feel that I've painted myself into a bit of a corner, giving slightly higher ratings to some than I should have.

So here then is an indication of what my scores will mean from here on out:

• A score of between 1-3 is a terrible review.  The film maker did little that was right or good.
• Between 4-6 is average to good.  The main bulk of movies fit in this range.
• 7-8 is well above average.  These will be standout movies, well-worth seeing and re-watching.  A movie in this range is much rarer.
• And then of course, 9-10 is the exceptional movie, one that I would consider to be at the top of the class. A 10 means that I believe improvement to be almost an impossibility.

So that means I need to lower some scores and be a bit tougher and more stingy with the higher numbers.  But that does not mean I like the film less, just that my ratings scale has changed.  

It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

Ah Jimmy Stewart, you are the king of feel good sentimentality, if only for this film!  In 1946 Frank Capra created one of the most enduring and heart-warming movies of all time in It's a Wonderful Life.  Capra had already hit cinematic gold with Mr Deeds Goes to Town with Gary Cooper, Arsenic and Old Lace with Carey Grant, and once before with Jimmy Stewart in Mr Smith Goes to Washington (yes, Capra liked the word "Mr." in his titles.).  But nothing has quite endured in the public consciousness quite like It's a Wonderful Life.  And this fact is odd, considering the fact that when it was released it was one of his least-successful films.  In fact, critics really seemed to dislike it and audiences kinda stayed away.  It was not until repeat releases and regular television showings at Christmas time that It's a Wonderful Life got the recognition we know today.

To be honest, I can really understand critics panning this film when it first came out.  It is shmaltzy, sappy, and overflowing with (here's a funny phrase) hopeless optimism.  It's really hard to know which is worse; its theology of angels (also known as angelology, I kid you not) or the quality of the child actors.  There is so much to dislike that I forgive anyone who regards it as "not a good movie."

But all is forgiven for so many reasons.  Yes, it is not a perfect film, but it has a sweet, simple, and uplifting message: each of us can make such a huge difference in this world.  To remove a man or woman from existence is to make the world that much poorer.  Add on the top the notion that the American Dream is not really getting rich and powerful, but doing good for one's neighbor, and you have a very strong ethic going on here.

Therefore I say, so what if 75% of George Bailey's lines are sappy enough to make syrup?  Those lines are delivered by Jimmy Stewart!  So what if Karolyn Grimes -who played Zuzu -delivered one of my least favorite child actor lines in Hollywood history (the monotone and slurred together "look daddy, teacher-says-that-everytime-a-bell-rings [gasp of breath] an-angel-gets-its-wings!")?  I'm still so happy George has her petals back!  Who cares if Mr. Potter's character is some Hollywood leftist's swipe at free market capitalism?  I say the critique is needed, that unfettered greed is a problem in any society!  So what if the theology takes a few (dozen) liberties?  It still teaches a Christian moral.  So what if the ending seems a couple thousand miles over the top?  I want to believe that decent people will win in the end, supported and helped by other decent people!

This is not a movie I like because it is well done.  But I love it for how Jimmy Stewart simply makes me smile.  This is a movie that makes everyone wish they had a friend named Clarence.

So remember everyone, no one is poor who has friends!

Entertainment: 6/10
Artistic Value: 6/10
Technical Merit: 6/10

Overall:  6/10 (but I like it anyway!)