FunBlog

Isn’t it massive consumer fraud to charge $10.50 for a barely hour-long movie? Perhaps, but it would’ve been unforgivable to make Meet the Spartans any longer than an hour. This was the worst movie I’ve ever seen, so bad that I hesitate to label it a “movie” and thus reflect shame upon the entire medium of film. Friedberg and Seltzer do not practice the same craft as P.T. Anderson, David Cronenberg, Michael Bay, Kevin Costner, the Zucker Brothers, the Wayans Brothers, Uwe Boll, any dad who takes shaky home movies on a camping trip, or a bear who turns on a video camera by accident while trying to eat it. They are not filmmakers. They are evildoers, charlatans, symbols of Western civilization’s decline under the weight of too many pop culture references.

–Josh Levin in Slate

There Will Be Blood was not quite the movie I was expecting. Hollywood loves to tell stories about evil oilmen, not only because everyone hates oil companies these days, but also because petroleum itself makes such a great visual metaphor for evil, all black and slimy and oozy.

However this is not so much the story of an evil oilman as a mentally ill oilman. Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a superficially charming and plausible fellow, but this is a thin veneer that barely conceals a deep, violent and uncontrollable rage. Indeed the more intelligent characters seem to realize this after talking to him for a few minutes, but for various reasons, mostly their own greed, they are typically unable to distance themselves from him.
(more…)

I probably wouldn’t have seen 27 Dresses except for the fact that my daughter is a big fan of Katherine Heigl. Now that I have seen it I can say without hesitation that it is harmless.

What else can I say? Let’s see…

1. Does the writing show the same cleverness and insight that one would expect of a show on the Disney Channel? Yes.
2. Does the acting rise to the same high standards? Yes.
3. Is it predictable? Yes.
4. Since this is a comedy, does anything happen that is particularly funny? Not really.

(more…)

Filed under Useless but Very Cool: Get some aeronautical engineers and origami experts together and design a paper airplane that can be launched from the International Space Station, reenter the atmosphere and land safely on Earth. Unfortunately there seems to be no control over where it will land… (article in The Register.)

Since I gave a favorable review to The Golden Compass, a movie based on a book by Philip Pullman, perhaps it’s only fair to link to an article in The Register which points out that Pullman seems to have some nasty, misanthropic views.

The Register’s snarky commentary aside, if we go to the original interview Pullman comes off as a typical self-righteous ass, pontificating on things about which he knows little and tossing off proposals without thinking through the implications.
(more…)

The Savages is a well-written, insightful and often funny movie with a talented cast, but I find it strangely unsatisfying. The subject matter sounds disturbing, but it really isn’t upsetting to watch; it’s more of a comedy than anything else. Maybe that’s the problem.

Lenny Savage (Peter Friedman) is an old man who is left with no place to live by the death of his long-time girlfriend. Since he is suffering from dementia the responsibility for seeing that he is taken care of falls on his two grown children, who have been out of touch with him for decades. They are somewhat flakey characters but they want to do the right thing and try their best.

Wendy Savage (Laura Linney) is an unproduced playwright who spends her days as a temp worker while carrying on a pitiful affair with an older married man. Her capacity for self-deception is remarkable.

Her brother Jon (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a drama professor at a New England college, specializing in the works of Bertolt Brecht. He is hard-headed, rational and unsentimental, or at least that’s how he thinks of himself.
(more…)

It’s not unusual for me to change my mind while watching an anime series. Sometimes a series starts well but falls apart at the end. Sometimes it takes me a while to understand what’s going on. However I don’t think I’ve ever changed changed my mind as often as I did while watching this one.

Partly it’s a matter of expectations. The early episodes look like a light-hearted comedy. Indeed, the distributor is explicitly marketing it as a comedy. But it is not really a comedy at all, and parts of it are emotionally wrenching to watch. Nor is it a realistic drama. I prefer to think of it as a modern fairy tale; a story whose characters wander down strange paths and end up trapped in an abyss of dispair, but are ultimately saved by the purity of their hearts and a bit of supernatural assistance.

Ultimately it’s the ending that makes all the difference. I think it’s a wonderful ending that justifies the whole series (though I had to think about it for a while before I was sure of that.)
(more…)

I had some idea what to expect going into this movie. As expected, the sets were dark and gloomy, the blood spurted high and the orchestra roared dramatically like surf pounding on the rocks. What I didn’t expect was how unmoved I would be by the whole thing. This has to be a major artistic failure.

It shouldn’t be this way. On paper this is a story of tragedy and horror, and I think I am capable of appreciating either or both. But it doesn’t feel tragic because there is nothing in the way the characters are portrayed that makes me care about them in the least. As for horror, I admit that there are a few moments that are sort of gross, but mostly it just seems silly.
(more…)