Finding Nemo (2003)

From the studio that brought you the stories of toys that come to life and monsters in your closet comes a new tale of horror!  This is the story of Marlin, a father who's family is brutally murdered by a serial killer who eats his victims.  Marlin miraculously survives this vicious killer's attack, along with a young son, Nemo, who ends up wounded and crippled.  But tragedy does not stay away from this small family; when the young crippled son is just barely old enough for school Marlin is forced to watch helplessly as Nemo is kidnapped right before his eyes!  Marlin sets off on a race against time trying to track down the kidnappers on his own.  Tragically, it seems the police will not help and the only person that will come to Marlin's aid is mentally handicapped.  Meanwhile, Nemo is kept in a small cell along with several other captives of a twisted personality who is simply called "the Dentist."  These captives are forced to see and hear the Dentist inflict cruel torture on people, and they can only wait helplessly wondering what their own fate will be.  But for Nemo that fate seems to be Darla, a remorseless and wicked villain who literally shakes her victims to death!  Nemo is doomed -unless Marlin can find him first!  Disney is proud to present this great thriller of terror and suspense: Finding Nemo!

Seriously, that's the plot of a kid's movie?  But they make it colorful, playful, make the ocean along the Australian coastline the setting (along with the accents), and make our characters fish and whammo, it really is a kids movie!  A really great and wonderful kids movie!

And yet this is a film sure to please adults as well.  There is much humor, and an abundance of decidedly quotable lines and moments: "Hello Bruce."  "A game?  I love games!  Pick me!"  "I sure wish I could speak whale."  "Mine!"  "Just keep swimming."  "Mr. Turtle is my father."  "'Offspring, Jellyman.  Jellyman, Offspring.'  'Jellies?  Wicked!'  'Totally.'"  "Sharkbait, ooh hah hah!"  ...and on and on.  The writing is simply fantastic.

The animation is wonderful and amazingly real -they really seemed to know their fish.  The vocal acting is great -especially Ellen DeGeneres as Dory.  And the music is simply magic -perfect for that undersea feel.  It's the story of normal people doing extraordinary things, and a story of how different people can come together and help each other in the face of adversity.

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

Overall: 8/10

The Little Mermaid (1989)

This is the review that will earn me the wrath of my little sister.  I love you sis, but I see this as revenge for your (many) repeated viewings of this horrible, horrible monster of a movie.  I've seen plenty of movies that I've hated, but there are few that hated me back.  This is one of those evil and malicious movies that just want to hurt me.

See, it's the music.  This film is full of wicked tunes that get in your head and remain there even a full decade after the last viewing.  The movie has a full slate of earworms that never die (that "daughters of Triton" bit will haunt me until I draw my last breath).  This is enough to give great cause to despise The Little Mermaid.

Then there are the characters.  You know, the shallow fall hopelessly 'in love' starry eyed whiny entitled brat of a teenager with fins.  Then there's the amazingly irritating sea gull; awkward, unpleasant, unfunny, and somehow even smelly -a true rat with wings.  There is also a dippy and dull-witted yellow best friend fish that is somehow fat, a mutant red cross between a turtle and crab (seriously, what kind of crab has a retractable head?) that is also a grouch, and a domineering father fish man that displays his love by shouting a lot.

But you know, it's the messages of this movie that kill me.  If ever there was a movie that could be used to show that Disney is an evil-bad company, this is it.  Consider what life lessons the little girls this movie is aimed at are encouraged to learn:

1. Your father doesn't know what is best for you.  Defy him and eventually he'll realize that you are right.
2. Love (AKA that glow you feel after first clapping eyes on some cute guy) is worth doing ANYTHING to get/keep hold of.  Even and especially giving up your body and the things about you that are priceless and unique.
3. The first kiss of true love is this magical, over the top experience that conquers all evils and sets everything to right.  
4. Sometimes things are forbidden because they are great.  Old people don't know as much as you do.  Up with youth, down with the previous generation!

You get the idea.  Okay, I know I overstate my case a bit.  There are redemptive themes, and even the example of a substitutionary payment.  And the animation is great.  But in this case, even though I hurl my vitriol against Ariel and her ilk with a great deal of tongue in cheek and a wink in my eye, the bad still does outweigh the good.

Oh, and everything is certainly NOT better down where it's wetter.  Take it from me.

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

Overall: 4/10

The Hidden Fortress (1958)

Good movies inspire.  And great directors make great movies.  In 1958 Akira Kurosawa directed The Hidden Fortress, using his favorite star Toshiro Mifune.  It's a simple tale really, about two peasants fleeing a war.  As they attempt to flee across a border they find two things they did not expect: a mysterious source of gold, and two strangers.  The strangers of course turn out to be a princess and her champion, a fierce and legendary samurai.  They also are fleeing, being on the losing side of the war.  But they are in disguise, and the peasants agree to help them get over the border as well in exchange for the gold.

This movie gets a lot right: the interactions between the characters is memorable and fun.  The plot is simple, yet alludes to a much grander, wider world.  The dialogue is fun, the acting good, and the pacing of the action perfect.  Most notably, The Hidden Fortress excels in its use of action.  The whole movie we are hearing of how masterful a warrior this general Makabe is, but we only ever see him acting the role of a peasant.  But in one glorious moment, the disguise is shed and the warrior emerges, powerful, strong, and dangerous.  I hadn't realized it, but I had been waiting for the general to show his stuff, and when he did it was amazingly powerful.

It's a simple movie, yet very well done.  And it's inspiring, as I've said.  George Lucas, in fact, cites The Hidden Fortress as a chief inspiration for his later Star Wars.  You know, the one where two more or less normal guys try to smuggle a princess and her general away from another evil empire...

Entertainment: 8/10
Artistic Value: 6/10
Technical Merit: 7/10

Overall: 7/10

There's a Blu Ray waiting for me on July 23!

On July 23 of this year the Criterion Collection is going to release a Blu Ray edition of Babette's Feast (1987).  I am more than thrilled at this, as I've been wanting to own a great release of this film for the past several years, and have been to this point unable to find one.

It's a story of a French housekeeper in Denmark (the dialogue is in Danish) who puts on an amazing meal that revolutionizes how many of the people in the village view life.  It's a fantastic tale about hospitality, gourmet food, faith, love, sacrifice, and the miraculous ability for people to have fellowship.

I'm sure I'll do a review in July, after I get my copy!  Until then, here's the appetizer cover art!

(As you can tell, I'm a bit excited.  I've been waiting for this one a long time.)

The Hobbit (2012)

I love The Hobbit and everything Lord of the Rings (hereafter LotR).  LotR ranks among my favorite novels of all time, containing excitement, adventure, fabulous characters, and the most marvelous setting in fantasy literature.  Further, I love the LotR movies.  They were well produced, with great effects, good acting, and most importantly an obvious reverence for the source material.

But for whatever reason, I never got all that excited about the prospect of a series of movies about The Hobbit.  It isn't because I don't love the book.  The novel is great in its own right, existing more as a prelude to LotR rather than as a prequel.  The Hobbit is our introduction to Middle Earth, and that introduction is wonderful.  Further, it has one of the great opening lines of literature: "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."  And as a kid I loved the animated Hobbit.  But I was still having trouble getting excited about a movie done the same way as the LotR films.  Perhaps it is because the novel is almost episodic, rather than a singular story, and such a structure does not lend itself to interesting movie making.  Or perhaps it is because Peter Jackson announced that he was making a total of THREE movies out of a rather small book, and that just seemed like overkill.  No matter how you cut it, I just felt like this effort was going to be more cash-in rather than a reverent approach to the source material.  To put it another way, my impression of seeing the production of LotR was that they were making movies to please fans of the book.  But my impression of the production of The Hobbit was they were making movies to please fans of the LotR movies.

So was my impression right or wrong?  Was it a cash in, or a serious and reverent adaptation of a favorite book?

Turns out I was right, more or less.  True, the style of writing in the novel is much lighter and playful than the novel The Lord of the Rings.  So I expected the film of The Hobbit to be a bit more playful.  But there was just something odd and wrong with how the film went about things.  The dwarves would be serious at one moment, then everyone would make a joke about how fat Bomber was.  What was great and lively dialogue in the book becomes somewhat tedious in the film.  There was way too much exposition with less plot movement than necessary.  Think of this: the film version of Fellowship was able to introduce us to the plot (not easy), then show several adventures and introduce scores of characters with tons of action without making a fan of the book feel that anything truly important to the plot was ignored (other than Tom Bombadil, but that's an argument for another day).  Comparatively speaking, The Hobbit moves with the pacing of a glacier at times, and only gets about 5 chapters through a book that is half the size of Fellowship.  There is just no reason why The Hobbit needed to be spread out to 3 films, except for the desire of studio bosses to make more money.

There were just a lot of little things that bugged me:

• Seriously, the orcs built a giant trap-door/false-floor into that cave in the off chance that travelers through the mountains just happened to stop in that place?  A tad unrealistic, don't you think?
• People survive far too many long falls that should kill them.  
• Speaking of falls, the one where they rode the bridge portion down the cliff in the goblin cave was just stupid.
• The fact that the great goblin landed 10 seconds or so after they did breaks all rules of physics.
• Peter Jackson seemed compelled to do things just like he did in LotR.  Yes, the eagles get them from the trees, but did we really need to have Gandalf send a moth for them again?  Seriously Pete, we need to AVOID the "been there, done that" feeling, not make it worse.  And also, there is absolutely no way that moth had time to get to the eagles before the orcs would kill our heroes.
• At the end of the film the team can see the Lonely Mountain.  This is of course impossible according to the geography of Middle Earth.  Such a detail in the movie is another indication that they are not approaching this series with the same reverence they did with the first movies.
• Some of the battles somehow had a "video game" kind of feel to them.
• The stone giant bit in the mountains was great.  Right up until they started riding the knees around.  That was a big "Ok, that went much too far" moment.
• Overall, it just failed to produce a feeling of wonder.

Of course, this doesn't mean everything was bad.

• I loved how they were building bridges between this story and the LotR.  They approached the story as a catalyst that gets everything rolling for the next films, and not just because of the ring.
• The scene that amounted to a council of Elrond, Galadriel, Gandalf, and Saruman was great (for someone who loves the book's lore).
• The troll scene was more or less faithful and fun.
• The "Riddles in the Dark" was perfect.  Except that it wasn't dark.
• It's always fun to see Gandalf back in action.

Overall we are not talking about a bad movie.  The production level was high, and it was fun in parts (though boring in others).  But it just seemed that the director was constantly saying to the audience "Remember this?  You liked it before, here it is again!"  Except it's never as good the second time.

Entertainment: 5/10

Artistic Value: 4/10

Technical Merit: 7/10

Overall: 5/10

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

Peter Lorre gives his first English performance in the first of Hitchcock's two versions of The Man Who Knew Too Much.  And boy, is that performance memorable.  He charms and laughs and rages his way through this tight and fun thriller, entirely and in every way stealing the show.

Comparisons are inevitable between this version and the later one with Jimmy Stewart.  But really overall they are very different films that simply share a similar plot.  The tension comes from a similar source, but the resolution of that tension and how it is developed are hardly similar.

To be honest, I'm not sure which version I prefer.  Hitchcock himself clearly thought he could do more with the concept, and he was right.  He certainly added to what he did here in the later film.  And of course the remake had Jimmy Stewart, which for me is always a plus (and changed the forgettable father in the early version with an unforgettable hero in the second.).  But overall I think the first film had better pacing, a much better villain, and a much more artistic style.  Hitchcock was breaking new ground in movie making, crafting a short but incredibly wonderful movie that still keeps audiences on the edge of their seats (and that has no small amount of humor).

Highly recommended.

Entertainment: 7/10
Artistic Value: 7/10
Technical Merit: 8/10

Overall: 7/10

Les Miserables (2012)

I am quite the fan of musical theater.  The "Broadway Musical" is the American version of opera, where much of the dialogue is sung rather than spoken.  It is an art form that naturally and easily connects with emotion.  And I've loved it ever since about 1995 when I first encountered the music to Phantom of the Opera.

So when I heard that a Hollywood adaptation of the musical Les Miserables was coming, I was of course quite skeptical.  I just plain doubted that Hollywood had the talent or ability to make a version of this marvelous play that would do it justice.  I shuddered to think that they might do to Les Mis what Joel Shumacher did to The Phantom of the Opera, create a spectacle full of glitz and sparkle, but completely devoid of the play's soul.

Then I started to hear things about how the film was being made.  And I started to hear about the cast.  Then I saw some clips.  And my worry gave way to complete anticipation!

And the anticipation has paid off.  Les Miserables is everything that I could have ever hoped for as a film adaptation of the play.  That's not to say that the film is without fault, but it has a heart and soul.

The play Les Miserables is simply a work of art.  It explores the conflict between Law and Grace, it speaks of faith and hedonism, mercy and misery.  It shows how the law might be unjust, and deals starkly with the raw and sinful underside of humanity.  And most of all, it celebrates that the grace of God can indeed transform misery into goodness.

Obviously this is a story established strongly upon a Christian worldview, with Christian morals and a Christian message.  There is violence and bloodshed, but this revolution achieves nothing good.  There is a stark depiction of sexuality and prostitution, but it is shown in its reality.  The prostitutes do not wish to be in the "oldest profession," they are instead forced into it out of desperation.  They are victims of a form of abuse.  In fact, every form of immoral sexuality depicted or referred to (and as a fair warning, there are a few) leads obviously to evil, brokenness, loneliness, poverty, and societal breakdown.  All things, whether government, business, police, neighbors, or anything else may easily be perverted and lead to misery among people.  The only thing that leads to peace, that changes men and restores them, is God's grace.  

This is the kind of thing that I can get fully behind.  This is Christian morality; a moral system that understands the brokenness of our world and provides the only real answers.  Want a good life?  It must be done God's way.

Hugh Jackman shines in his role as Valjean, and indeed the movie would not be a success without an actor talented enough to sing well as well as act.  Jackman has it, and pours his heart into Valjean.

But more deserving of praise is Anne Hathaway's performance as Fantine.  The role is small, yet every moment of screentime she has is brilliant.  Her "I Dreamed a Dream" solo performance is indeed everything you might have heard it would be.  It is harrowing, haunting, and shattering.  She simply steals the show.

The rest of the cast was also good, even surprisingly better than I expected.  Everyone certainly could sing and act well.  But of course there is a low point.  I love Russel Crowe as an actor.  He is powerful and intense, and clearly pours himself into what he does.  But here he was not the ideal Javert.  In watching his performance I felt like he was so distracted by singing that he forgot to act, or vice versa.  He was not as bad a singer as I had feared, but he just wasn't quite good enough as a singer really to HIT those power notes like he needed to.  I loved Javert from the musical; I readily identify with his character.  But Crowe's performance was enough to make me feel distant from a character I love, and if that doesn't say "miscast" I don't know what does.

For me, the ultimate highlight of the film was simply how great it sounded, and how the voices really did feel like they came from the actors who were singing.  This was something I hated about The Phantom of the Opera; no matter how well the editing was done, it always seemed like the voice you heard was not being sung by the person on screen.  There was just something "off," something wrong that made it look like a really good puppet show.  That's because all the voices for the music were recorded ahead of time, and the actors on set simply lip-synched their parts.

Not so in Les Miserables.  Here the director made the rather daring choice that the whole movie's music would be recorded on set.  Thus, the actor you see was really singing the words you hear while the scene was being done.  Lips are perfectly synchronized.  And performances seem perfectly suited to what is actually going on -nothing seems strained simply because of a choice made in recording audio weeks before shooting the scene.  But of course this choice made everything extremely hard for the sound recorders and mixers.  I'm happy to say that team deserves every accolade possible; this movie sounds great.

Of course, there are a few other things that kinda bugged me.  Santa bugged me.  The inclusion of those moments into the film (not included in the play) made a joke out of something serious.  Yes, there is sexuality in the play (as noted before), but it is always dealt with in a way that shows the sin and sinful consequence.  The santa bits made it a throwaway gag, a moment for coarse laughter, and the clear lowpoint of the film.

Also I was a bit bugged by the pacing of the film.  This is undoubtedly a long movie, but I can't help but think that if 10-15 minutes were added the whole experience could have been better.  Some scenes just did not transition well to others and felt somewhat rushed.  A few more moments between some of these would have improved the pacing greatly, so that nothing would feel jarring.

But on the whole the complaints are few.  Les Miserables is a great adaptation of a great play, and the messages and themes simply resonate through time.

Entertainment: 7/10
Artistic Value: 10/10
Technical Merit: 8/10

Overall: 8/10

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

For those who love action movies, Indiana Jones is something of a Holy Grail (pun intended).  Raiders of the Lost Ark is among the best action films ever, a feat of pure movie magic that will forever be remembered as masterful.  And both The Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade were memorable in their own right, being humorously campy and a return to form, respectively.  But since 1989 the Indiana Jones franchise has been dormant, a fond memory but not a continued saga.  Movie lovers have dreamed of the time that Indy would once again ride into danger, braving ancient traps and supernatural terror to save the world from mad cultists and/or nazis.

Then in 2008 the wait was over!  Eagerly fans received news that Indy was back, brought to life once again by the stellar team of Spielberg and Harrison Ford.  And boy, did Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull deliver!  All the stops were pulled to bring to screen the best, most exciting, most wonderfully marketable Indy film that could possibly have been made!

Honestly, what's not to love about this movie?  Harrison Ford hasn't missed a beat; refusing to see this movie as simply a meal ticket he pours himself into the role, turning out what honestly should have been an Oscar-nominated performance.  Also cast is superstar Shia LaBeouf, who gives such subtle complexity to his character that it removes all doubt why audiences respond to him as they do.  And I would be remiss if I did not praise the work of John Hurt, who while having a smaller role still manages to be both philosophical and thrillingly suave.

This movie has everything an Indy film should have: Nazis (ok, Soviets, but they're the same thing, right?), action, conspiracy, great comedic timing, someone swinging through the jungle like Tarzan, killer ants, jokes about aging, aliens, creepy burial places, a great mystery, incredible nuclear blast-proof refrigerators, and the great revelation that knowledge is the real treasure.  The screenplay is perfect, the acting sublime, the action exciting, the plot suspenseful, and the ending exactly what true Indy fans would want!  Steven Spielberg has done a lot of GREAT movies in his time, like A.I. Artificial Intelligence, War of the Worlds, and The Lost World: Jurassic Park (the title alone of that one should have gotten a special Oscar!).  The Crystal Skull ranks right up there with those three great and visionary works of art.

Welcome back Indiana Jones!  Thanks for coming back in such a memorable way!  And I'm sure that every fan is thrilled to know that Spielberg is working on your fifth installment!  I hope it's just as good!

Entertainment 11/10
Artistic Value: 11/10
Technical Merit: 11/10

Overall:  11/10 (best film ever!  ...at least it is today...)


Special points given for TheBeef swinging through the trees!  I can't believe the special effects made that whole sequence so realistic!  11/10!