brunchie Reviews

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009)

As action packed as any more adult action movie

[7/10 · 20 September 2009]

There seems to be a trend in children's movies to borrow the intense action scenes from "grown up" action flicks and animate them. This film keeps up a frenetic pace. This is good for today's under 14 viewers who have been exposed in equal doses to blockbusters like Spiderman, Transformers, X-Men, and even the Die Hard movies as they are to "cartoons". The field has grown so that it's not only Pixar as the only game in town.

My daughter wanted to see it because she remembered it as one of her favorite books that my mother read to her. But also, as she said, "How can you make a feature length movie out a slim little book?" I'm glad, actually, that I hadn't read the book first. I'm glad I didn't really see the trailers first. I'm glad because then I would have had preconceived notions. I did think, however, that it was going to be a silly movie that appealed to my daughter but was slight torture for me. I was pleasantly surprised that it was entertaining enough for me. What kept it from being rated higher for me were some, "Ew, gross" moments and some things I was surprised made it into a children's movie. It wasn't quite non-stop hilarious like "Over the Hedge", but I think they did make a true effort to appeal both to the kids and to the adults that would be bringing them.

One thing the Barretts can be thanking this movie for is that, hopefully, their classic book will be flying off the shelves now. I know I went to the bookstore right after the movie to seek out and read the book the movie was based on. What is pleasant is that, surprisingly, a lot of the elements were retained in the movie, even the clever in-jokes that the book had, like the stores' names. Of course, A LOT of elements were added to flesh out the story but there were some elements I wish they would have added in like the followup story in the second book, in which they found a good use for all that food and the fantastical grandfather narrator.

These days, all that matters is that at least one of us enjoys the movie. I hate when we sit through a turkey that neither of us enjoys.

It Happened Tomorrow (1944)

Thanks to IMDb members, I discovered this gem

[10/10 · 5 September 2009]

I went on the message board for one of my favorite TV shows, "Early Edition" and discovered that this movie may have been the inspiration for that it. I went in trying to find the parallels between the two and instead wound up just going along for the ride. This movie worked on all levels. I wasn't expecting it to be the comedy that it was. The male lead was hysterical, sometimes just getting laughs from his facial expressions and the female lead was luminous. I always enjoy it when there's a movie that has multi-generational appeal. I watched it with my mom, who was 9 when the movie came out, and my daughter who was born the year "Early Edition" aired and all of us got a kick out of the movie. My daughter even said that she enjoyed the movie better than the show! I was worried that my daughter would be bored because b/w movies are much more talky than today's movies and lack the special effects now available but she cracked up out loud on several parts. For my mom, it was trip down memory lane seeing familiar actors from her past.

Little Fugitive (1953)

A blast from the past that my child and I both enjoyed!

[9/10 · 16 September 2007]

Because my 11 year old is pretty open-minded, I've taken her on adventure of watching b/w movies, just as my mom did for me. She actually enjoyed some of the old-time "horror" movies and loves the "Twilight Zone".

I also introduced her to what would be considered "art house" movies. She didn't really like "The Bicycle Thief" but I did, and this movie was recommended by Blockbuster. So I put it in my queue- and it was not a mistake. OK, so some of the acting is stilted and unprofessional and sometimes the movie feels longer than 75-80 minutes (depending on which version you view).

But, whether you're a big or little brother or sister, you can definitely relate. Even my child, who's my only child, can relate because she has younger cousins. I agree with many of the posters that the children act like children and act like how they would act in that situation. If you're blessed to get the DVD with the commentary, it evens add to your viewing pleasure.

What most gratified me was when my daughter, who has gone to almost every kiddy-themed entertainment center, said about several of the rides that they looked fun! This movie about Coney Island helped me visualize what my mother always talked about Riverdale, a Chicago area amusement park from the 40's and brought back memories of Funtown, Old Chicago, and Santa's Village, the local amusement parks of my day from the 70's.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)

Should have been rated R for language and content (Possible spoilers)

[2/10 · 9 December 2006]

Will Ferrell's movies are hit or miss. I thought I would never see another one after Superstar but I was pleasantly surprised by "Elf" and "Kicking and Screaming". Well, this one goes down as a miss. It seemed like it got progressively stupider after the first third of the movie. Even with parental guidance and children in the movie, most of the dialogue was very inappropriate for children. However, there were three standout performances: 1) Gary Cole as the absent drunken father of Will Ferrell. He always manages to make his characters memorable from Mr. Brady to the annoying boss Lumburger in Office Space. 2) The character of Ricky Bobby's mother. She was a no nonsense grandmother! 3) The camera action during the races. There was one scene in particular in the race that equals the bullet scene in "Three Kings", the long shot in "Snake Eyes" and a host of other creative camera work seen in movies. It gave me a newfound respect for race car driving, though not enough to make me regularly watch it. But if I was a Nascar fan, I would nave been disappointed with all the filler material outside of the racing.

P.S. It was also one of those movies where the outtakes were better than the actual movie.

Constantine (2005)

Confusing mess. See it for the theological questions it raises.

[13 November 2005]

By the end of the movie, I was thoroughly confused and I don't want anyone to bother to unconfuse me, especially fans of the graphic novels it was based on. I have no problem with a movie that has twists, scenes and dialogues that you have to pay close attention to. I have no problem with a movie that makes you think but this one merely gave me a headache. And not to mention Mr. Reeves' acting that reminded me about what a critic said about another actor's performance: "So wooden, you can dust it off with Pledge." Most of his lines were delivered like he took a sip of water between words. He delivered his lines like the kid you have to suffer through in first grade when the teacher asks the class to each read a passage out loud. And isn't this the second movie that Shia LeBouf plays the wisecracking, annoying sidekick who wants a piece of the action? The only performances worth noting are Gabrielle/Gabriel played androgynous and Angela because she's performed well in better movies. The only time Reeves' deadpan delivery worked are for the few one-line zingers. Not to mention that is the second movie I've seen where I didn't agree with the MPAA rating. I usually don't watch R-rated horror/thriller movies because the violence is usually over-the-top. The House of Flying Daggers portrayed blood spurting, and people getting sliced and stabbed yet it got a PG-13 but the violence in this movie was no worse than "Something Wicked This Way Comes" or the first "Indiana Jones". And I'm kind of tired of the dark side character- Midnight- being cast as a dark actor- played by an African actor ala Judas in "Jesus Christ Superstar", Pam Grier in "Something Wicked..." and even Darth Vader wearing a dark outfit and voiced by black actor, James Earl Jones but the supposed Savior of the world is a white actor in Reeves' second role of the type after playing Neo (an amalgram of "One") in the Matrix (pretty much employing the same acting style).

I really watched this movie for the theological questions it raises. Where do suicide "victims" go after they die? Are demons and angels amongst us or are they safely in their domains letting only their half human spawn live amongst us? Have we misdiagnosed some mentally ill people who instead of being crazy are merely able to see the spirit world? Are some of the evil or helpful people in the world really half-demon or half-angels? Can you bargain for your soul's outcome? Are God and Satan like Yin and Yang, two equal superpowers? And does this movie answer those questions? No. It merely raises them. For a movie with a similar theme, albeit less gruesome, see, "What Dreams May Come." with Robin Williams and Annabella Sciorra in a role that finally does something with her fragility/vulnerability. What did intrigue me is that film is unabashedly dependent on Catholic beliefs and delves into areas of theology that Protestantism doesn't even address. Would love to ask the typical Baptist or COGIC preacher what he thinks about the above questions.

House of Flying Daggers (2004)

Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon meets West Side Story

[8/10 · 13 November 2005]

I've read a few of the postings and, even though I agreed with many of the critics, I still found myself watching it twice in a row, the second time with commentary to catch things I missed on the first viewing. I grew up in a time when martial arts movies were big on the martial, small on the art. The movies came on in the afternoon on Saturdays and were mimicked by mostly male classmates on Monday. Chuck Norris, Bruce Lee, and gasp- Jean Claude Van Damme were heroes in America. Then American audiences finally started seeing martial arts stories being told by Asians, made by Asians and acted by Asians- then that's when the art came back. When this movie came out at my local library, I was eager to try it. Even though I mostly enjoyed it, here are my observations:

1. Her pouring tea is a giveaway but doing martial arts is not? Jin said early in the movie that that girl seemed familiar because the old leader had a blind daughter. But Mei says later, yes the old leader had a blind daughter but she didn't know martial arts. Most military/police officers' success is built on having reliable background information on their mark. That's kind a big detail to miss out on.

2. Because the filmed evoked an Asian mood with a Western twist, I half expected, after Jin says, "You're not blind?" for Mei to reply, "You're not a sympathizer trying to break me out of prison?"

3. After Jin says his lines about break away from your group and be like me, free like the wind why did I expect him to break into song singing, "There's a place for us, somewhere a place for us..." But wait, he did, basically singing to a dead lover like Maria did in West Side Story, who also fell in love with someone over the course of days.

4. It's just me aesthetically, but I probably would have chosen the younger, athletic, brave Jin over the Andy Lau character, too. In fact, when Lau came to her and she gave that half-smile, I knew he was doomed. Why do filmmakers do that, casting characters that are so dissimilar physically and emotionally that it's like, why would Maria in WSS pick Chino over Tony? Or Lau over Tasheiko (sic)?

5. I'm kind of glad that Mei was unrealistically resurrected at the end because for some reason, I felt like the scene went on too long and I began to not really care who killed who. The intensity was believable because they both cared for the girl and both felt betrayed. After a while I felt like how could Lau be mad when, in a jealous rage, you stabbed the love of your life instead of the secret agent on the other side/lover of your woman and how could Jin be mad because he got serious with the mark/bait/girlfriend of his superior, despite the superior's constant warnings? It almost took Mei to "come back" saying, in essence, "Hello, I'm dying over here. Can you both stop acting like idiots and either help me out or at least stop trying to kill each other because I'm going to die anyway?"

6. I agree with Jin, how was Mei going to explain not killing him? As smart as the group was, I couldn't imagine her being able to pull that one off.

7. People have made a big deal about where Mei's dagger eventually ended. Can you give a woman a break who's been stabbed, laid out in the cold elements for minutes or hours with a dagger in her chest and resurrects and decides to throw it, ensuring her quick death that just maybe her aim would have been off?

8. What a choice, a man who "pretends" to force himself on you, a man that does try to force himself on you and then stabs you because you fall in love with the "attempted" rapist.

Having said that...

1. I felt sorry for the Andy Lau character because I'm assuming his character didn't even indulge in the local whorehouse during his 3 year absence from his love. When I first saw the movie, I felt like him- How can you fall in love with someone you've just known for 3 days, when he's loved her for 3 years? Then it hit me, Lau's character's love required almost being drowned, sleeping with and seducing other men to get secrets, and not revealing your relationship to anyone lest you get everybody killed and Jin's love meant being beholden to no one and not being used as a disposable pawn.

3. Lau's character actually had a lot character being that he made sure to protect his trusted agent while at the same time protecting his true love, in spite of his special knowledge.

4. My ending: Mei makes it seem like she is talking to Lau's character in saying, "Don't kill him, or I'll kill you." but she's really talking to Jin and her whole deal has really been an act. So she throws the dagger at Jin because not only did he almost come between the mission but he also came between her true love. The reason she's conflicted in the intimate scene with Lau is that she knows that this time, she did succeed in getting one of her men to fall in love with her but she has no choice but to kill him. Or it could have ended with the two men ending up killing each other and all three of them lying in the field- dead- but in the same pose the two lovers, Jin and Mei, had assumed earlier. 5. Did anyone else think that Jin actually really did love her more because he came to her side as she was dying?