kenjisan

Movie Review: Sky Blue

Square-Enix fans have reason to rejoice. While the Japanese based videogame company gears up to release its second CGI movie, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, you can get a taste of the epic, crazy, often-confusing Japanese drama-in-cinema-form with Sky Blue.

The presentation (a mix of CG and traditional animation) was beautiful to a fault. Motorcycles weaved in and out of crowds, small aircraft swooped across perfectly rendered water. As Dutton pointed out afterwards, a lot of the scenes had a very contrived feeling, a feeling of "okay, now they're just showing off." A lot of the scenes actually felt like they could have been Akira outtakes and the music didn't help dispel this association. There was even a motorcycle chase scene set to drums. This being said, I have to express my opinion here of "so what?"

The story was... well, it was so-so. If nothing else, it held very well to the traditional Japanese video game plot, despite it not being a video game. The world has been devastated by 100 years of toxic rain. Civilization has crashed around all but the world's only organic city, Ecoban. Those who live within the walls of Ecoban have it easy. Those outside (Ecoban didn't let in any refugees), called the "Diggers," have a pretty shitty life, what with all the toxic rain and the oppression by the Ecoban elite. A few defectors, sympathetic to the Digger cause, decide to balance the scales. You've got your lonely hero, your love interest, your rag-tag bunch of misfits who don't understand the hero but come to support him, your wise old mentor to the hero who shows him the way, and your plot that makes you scratch your head and wonder what just happened when it's all over. Nothing new there.

In the end, I'd say Sky Blue has more good to offer than bad. The quietly moody opening scene alone was worth the bizarre resolution at the end. I'd recommend it, but you could probably wait for a DVD release.

Movie Review: The Forgotten

I'm not really sure what I can say about this movie without spoiling something. The movie was neither good nor bad, but I don't think I'd really recommend it to anyone, either. Here's a quick and oft-used analogy: you're served a glass of ice cold Coke, you get all excited about it, but when you go to drink it, it turns out to be Dr. Pepper! It's not that you don't like Dr. Pepper; more importantly you weren't expecting Dr. Pepper. Watching this movie, I was expecting Coke, but instead, I got... milk.

The other thing I have to say is that, for the most part, I don't like the deus ex machina device used in movies and stories—especially if it's used to gloss over important plot points and details.

Okay, that's all I can really say. Not good, not bad, but weird. And not recommended.

Movie Review: Collateral

Broad sweeping statement: there are good movies, bad movies, and bad movies that could have been good movies. Collateral was of the third vein.

In fact, for the first 3/4 of the movie, I couldn't figure out why it got so much negative criticism. It was edgy, original; Tom Cruise and Jamie Fox (especially Jamie Fox) had exceptional performances; the characters felt real (despite their very unreal situation); and, for the most part, the movie avoided too many cliches that many crime dramas stumble into. Boy did that change.

I remember watching A.I. and noting how clear the divide was between Kubrick and Spielberg. This movie achieved that feeling of schizophrenia without the benefit of two directors.

/clap

It was as though the movie was hijacked by Hollywood and whoever directed the latest Terminator movie. Cyndi, Jess, and I noticed it before we actually realized it. At some point, we went from the quiet, attentive audience that mills about any captivating drama to the questioning, jeering crowd of a cheesy Hollywood blockbuster. We began to question little plot holes, mini-conflicts, and the uncharacteristic behavior designed for a thrill more than story advancement. You know, all the conventions of a bad movie (see above).

So there you have it. Collateral ranks up there with the tragic ones: Unbreakable, The Last Samurai, Episodes I and II. You know, the ones that could have, should have, but didn't.

Movie Review: The Day After Tomorrow

Or, my critique on the Hollywood Blockbuster

But how could global warming bring on the next Ice Age? But why are they burning books when they could be burning furniture? But I thought wolves are scavengers and don't normally attack people? Shouldn't tital waves travel faster than that? How does the North Atlantic current cause gigantic tornadoes in L.A.?

Turn off the brain. These aren't the right questions to be asking while watching this movie (from the director of Independence Day, Godzilla, and The Patriot). There is absolutely no point in questioning the science of The Day After Tomorrow, or look for plot holes, or wonder exactly why those wolves hadn't frozen to death. As Stephen Hunter says in his review of the soon-to-be-Classic National Treasure, you've got to view these "films" as the "movie equivalent of comfort food: Think of it as a plate of gray roast beef, beige mashed potatoes and chartreuse peas all smothered in sepia gravy served on Wonder Bread in a diner somewhere between East Jonesborough and Potawatomi Run. Expect indigestion, expect cholesterol, expect little greasy Jujubes in your teeth for months and you can have a damned good time."

For a bad Hollywood blockbuster, I'd say this one was pretty good. A good bad movie. Seriously. I wasn't expecting an Oscar-perfomance from any of these normally good actors (Jake Gyllenhaal, Ian Holm, even Dennis Quaid I don't mind), but there was at least an attempt at some kind of development and it didn't get too sentimental. Most of the situations avoided the "mini-crises" pattern of one small problem after another (which made me hate Armageddon) and only one time did I find it impossible to suspend what limited scientific knowledge I have for a purely Hollywood thrill.

Yes, the movie did get moralistic at the end. Yes, there was a heroic monologue showing us that third world countries were better than us and we should stop abusing oil or else (no, the movie had nothing to do with either of these issues). Sure, you could pick this movie apart until you were blue in the face, but what's the point, right? No one's going to watch this movie and look for any higher meanings. But no one munches on Mike 'n' Ikes for sustenance, either.

Still... can one really outrun cold?

Movie Review: The Machinist

WARNING: MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD

Don't try to get your girlfriend to go to this movie by playing up Christian Bale's hotness. He's not hot unless you're into zombies or skeletons (and yes, I know some of you do have this fetish). You think I may be exaggerating here, but I swear to you that I am not (evidence). I actually turned to Cyndi and asked her if she thought they did some kind of computer editing to make him look so starved. I don't think they did.

Okay, on to my thoughts not consumed with the Christian Bale weightloss program. The movie itself was good: eery, creepy, edgy, gritty. Like Bale's character Trevor Reznik, who hasn't slept in over a year, we're left with a very uneasy feeling that something terrible is just about to happen, and the deja vu feeling that perhaps it already has. The Machinist is a mystery story about guilt and the consequences of that guilt. It won't make you feel happy at the end, but it'll definitely resonate with you throughout the weekend.

As I sat there through the bleak film, a myriad of others came to mind: Fight Club, Seven, Insomnia and Memento, and any one of Hitchcock's movies. There was a twist, yes, but unlike a Shyamalan movie, you know it's coming. There was a mystery there to be solved. Don't all mysteries have swerves in them?

Movie Review: The Grudge

I was in the mood to be scared Friday night. This movie successfully did that. For this one, Takashi Shimizu pulls out all the tricks in Horror Movie 101: creepy kids, gross hair-over-the-face, scary phone calls, pyschic mother-in-laws. There's even a black cat in here.

But—yes, there is a but here—while the movie was scary at the time, it lacked the lingering terror that really good horror movies have. After watching the Ring, I was still scared days later. We came up with a pretty good theory as to why this is: while the story had a mystery to it, it was contained within itself, for the most part. The Ring drew us in, made the audience part of the mythos. The Grudge was just another scary story.

One last note to movie goers: be courteous to others. Laughing is okay when the movie is a) a comedy, or b) bad enough to be laughed at. I don't think it's really appropriate when you're afraid, embarrassed at being afraid, and making a joke of the situation in a show of low-brow machismo. People come to a movie like this to be frightened. Don't come if you think being frightened is going to reflect badly on your masculinity.

Movie Review: Resident Evil Apocolpyse

Warning: I am outrageously biased when it comes to this movie, and this stems from my semi-profound appreciation for the first Resident Evil. I probably like horror movies a little bit more than the average viewer, but haven't succumbed to the "zombies are the new vampire" craze that's been sweeping the nation. I don't run out and see every slasher film (in fact, I rarely see these movies, choosing "spooky" over "scary" when there's that choice to be made), and only the truly frightening trailers (i.e. The Grudge) can get me excited about horror over another genre.

With that said, I still remember watching RE alone in my room on my tiny screen. This is the movie that has forever changed the way I think about my elevator rides (if I'm ever stuck in an elevator, you won't catch me sticking my head out between the doors). For a movie that really shouldn't have been scary (I've watched it since), it scared me. For this, I put it up there with the great-not-so-great movies of all time.

Nothing could top the strange mystique that surrounded the first movie, but Apocolypse certainly tried. Far more over-the-top with a lot more action (frantic, Gladiator-esque scenes with the shaky-camera settting maxed out), the movie still featured my favorite thing from the first: Milla kicking a whole lot of ass. And looking good doing it.

The story was a little weak, the pacing a little strange, and the acting not the best, but who's going into the theatre thinking they're going to get any of that? Resident Evil Apocolypse is meant to be entertaining and in this, I believe it succeeds.

Movie Review: The Twilight Samurai

Tasogare Seibei, or The Twilight Samurai, is a samurai anti-epic. Rather than romanticizing the last days of the samurai culture—just before the Meiji Restoration circa 1865—it paints a realistic portrait of the hard life of a low-level samurai named Seibei Iguchi (Hiroyuki Sanada), and how honor and duty do not always mix well with happiness and the content life. Going into the movie with Tom Cruise’s The Last Samurai in mind, it was interesting to see how two stories that share so many things in common—same time period, same themes of love, honor, and self-discipline, even the same actor—could be so different. Where The Last Samurai handles everything with a Hollywood flourish, a “meaningful” ending, and an epic-style simplicity, Yoji Yamada’s quieter story focuses on the characters and the realistic way they must go about their daily lives in those changing times.

There’s not much action in this movie, despite its “samurai movie” tag, so don’t go into this one thinking you’ll find decapitated heads and gouts of blood. What you’ll find instead is a touching story that won’t leave you with an implanted feeling of nostalgia for the samurai reign. The Twilight Samurai is told with wonderful characters, a subtle narrative voice, and yes, a sword fight or two in there somewhere.

Movie Review: Coffee and Cigarettes

Coffee and Cigarettes is not for everyone. Featuring a handful of (dis)connected skits of actors and musicians playing themselves, Jarmusch’s latest moves at an almost painstakingly slow pace, hurling ever so leisurely towards… something? I saw this movie a couple weeks ago with Dre, Cyndi, and Little Tighe, and in the end, we left the Shirlington theatre happy to have seen it, but not quite sure why. We struggled to make sense of it, and in the end, decided to throw out that fruitless quest and talk about the things we liked.

Some of the vignettes are wonderful. Some I could have done without. In particular, I was pretty disappointed with the Iggy Pop and Tom Waits skit. Two great musicians meet in a bar over coffee and cigarettes (surprise, surprise) and have a very awkward conversation about… not a whole lot, really. Could have been great. Wasn’t. I’d say half of the miniature acts fall into this category: awkward, slow, potentially interesting, but ultimately boring.

Still, there were a few skits that made it all worthwhile, and they were the ones that we kept talking about. The great Bill Murray runs into Wu-Tang’s RZA and GZA as he masquerades as a waiter in a chef’s hat. Jack and Meg White prove that they are much more than just musicians. And in my favorite sketch, beautiful Cate Blanchett has an uncomfortable conversation with her cousin, Shelby, played by Cate Blanchett.

I liked Coffee and Cigarettes and, like I said before, I don’t know why. Movies.com, if you’re unsure how to categorize me, I’m mixed, I suppose.