VIDEO: MOVIE: REVIEW: The Wicker Man (2006)

VIDEO: MOVIE: REVIEW: The Wicker Man (2006)

3/5 stars, 7/10 from Clint & Carolyn.
3/5 stars, 6/10 from Parthena.
2/5 stars, 5/10 from Eli.
Native rating: 3.6/10.

Wow. What a low IMDB rating. Talk about a movie that has major remake-hate! By rating it 7/10, Carolyn & I are in the top 12% of opinion in this movie!

When I watched selected scenes from the 1970’s version, it just looked incredibly cheesy and dated. Nude songs being sung?  Shitty film stock? Men instead of women? Cheap-looking sets? Meh. Pretty sure if I watched the original I’d like it less than this.

Plus, we really like Nic Cage and Frances Controy from Six Feet Under. And Ellen Burstyn is good too.

I was the only one who recognized Leelee Sobieski from Armageddon.

NOT THE BEES should have gone on longer!

It was better than Carolyn & Eli expected.

It was actually pretty creepy. Nothing great, but I’ve seen worse. Not the “worst movie ever” that so many people claim it to be.

LINK URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0450345/

 

VIDEO: MOVIES: CARTOONS: REVIEW: Doctor Strange (2007)

VIDEO: MOVIES: CARTOONS: REVIEW: Doctor Strange (2007)

Doctor Strange – The Sorcerer Supreme (2007) – 
Clint: 4/5 stars, 8/10. 
Carolyn: 5/5 stars, 9/10. 
Native ratings: 3.8/5 stars Netflix, /10 IMDB.

Carolyn: This was a good animated Marvel movie.  I am not as familiar with Doctor Strange in the comic book realm, so it was interesting to see his origin story.  The Marvel animated movies rarely disappoint, anyway.

Clint: I have to agree. This is the type of stuff we like. This isn’t one of the best, but I suspect it’s the only feature-length Doctor Strange origin movie that’s worth watching. 

I wasn’t as wow’ed by it as Carolyn, as I’m starting to get jaded from watching so.many.movies lately. I’m starting to get to that age where you notice stories are becoming less unique: This felt like a combo of the origin stories of Batman (in Batman Begins) and Green Lantern (in terms of ancient leaders and their corrupt inner circle members), combined with the latest season of Avatar:The Legend Of Korra (in terms of demonic gods trying to break through to our realm). I should probably take a break from watching movies for a bit, to become less jaded. (But I really want to watch one tonite!)

One interesting thing: The sound mix was excellent. 

LINK URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0910865/combined

 

VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: Kick-Ass 2 (2013)

VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: Kick-Ass 2 (2013)

Clint: 4.4/5 stars, 8/10.
Carolyn: 4/5 stars, 8/10.
Native ratings: 3.8/5 stars Netflix, 6.8/10 IMDB.

Hilarious, but still with a dark edge like the original. But not as dark, and seemingly not as serious.   We missed Nic Cage, though.  We wish he could have been in this.  We got Jim Carrey, though!  Carolyn didn’t recognize him until Clint pointed out who he was. Good makeup. And it’s okay if the makeup doesn’t look realistic, because that’s just comic book aesthetics. It actually opens things up for more creativity, versus the less-creative, more-common goal of making everyone look “realistic”.

But anyway… Super heroes in real life (i.e. *our* version of Earth) is an awesome genre, considering we have hundreds of known *real* costumed heroes in real life.

Written & directed by Jeff Wadlow.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson (he’s going to be Quiksilver in The Avengers: Age of Ultron) as Dave Lizewski / Kick-Ass. Hmm, I guess he didn’t end up being Cyclops in X-Men: First Class…
Chloe Grace Moretz (Let Me In, The Amityville Horror, Movie 43, 1 ep of American Dad) as Mindy Macready / Hit-Girl.
Jim Carrey as Colonel Stars and Stripes.
Morris Chestnut (Ryan Nichols in the new V series, Identity Thief, 1 ep of American Dad) as Detective Marcus Williams, who is now the guardian of Hit-Girl.
Clark Duke (Hot Tub Time Machine, Kick-Ass, Sex Drive, Superbad, Clark on the last season of The Office, 5 eps of Robot Chicken) as Marty / Battle Guy.
Augustus Prew as Todd / Ass Kicker.
Christopher Mintz-Plasse (McLovin from Superbad, How To Train Your Dragon, The To-Do List, This Is the End, Kick-Ass, Movie 43, Fright Night, Year One) as Chris D’Amico / The Motherfucker.
John Leguizamo (Ice Age movies, Luigi in Super Mario Brothers, uncredited in Repo Men, 1 ep of American Dad) as Javier, The Motherfucker’s butler.
Donald Faison (Bartik in TRON: Uprising, Can’t Hardly Wait, Clueless (also in the TV series), 8 eps of Robot Chicken, 3 eps of The Boondocks, 1 ep of Adventure Time, 1 ep of Titan Maximum) as Dr. Gravity.
Lyndsy Fonseca (Hot Tub Time Machine, 1 ep of Heroes, 1 ep of Malcolm In The Middle) as Katie Deauxma.
Yancy Butler (Hansel & Gretel Get Baked) as Mrs. D’Amico, The Motherfucker’s mother.
Lindy Booth (Detroit Rock City, Wrong Turn) as Night Bitch.
Benedict Wong (Prometheus, 2 eps of Look Around You) as Mr. Kim.
Andy Nyman (1 ep of Holliston where he apparently plays Axl The Cat) as The Tumor.
Garrett M. Brown (Uncle Buck) as Mr. Lizewski.

LINK URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1650554/combined

 

VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: Extracted (2012)

VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: Extracted (2012)

A very interesting premise: Being able to scientifically observe *other* peoples’ memories, thanks to corporations perverting technology originally meant for people to examine their *own* memories as a way of dealing with trauma. Now what happens if you get stuck in someone? This comes off like The Host meets The Cell (but with no romance).

However: Such a slow, slow, slow build-up. 40-50 minutes. But then it got interesting. And stayed interesting. Hell, it got so interesting it actually felt a bit rushed at the end.

I think this movie could have benefited from some better editing. It could have been a 4/5-star, 8/10 movie easily. Maybe even better. But it missed its mark a bit.

Written & directed by Nir Paniry.
Starring Sasha Roiz as Tom.
Jenny Mollen (Crazy, Stupid, Love) as Abbey, Tom’s wife.
Dominic Bogart as Anthony, the heroin addict.
Richard Riehle (A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, Miss Nobody, Hatchet, Palindromes, Mysterious Skin, Dorm Daze 2, 1 ep of The Legend Of Korra) as Father Riley, the prison priest.
Nick Jameson (President Yuri Suvarov in 24, Batman: Year One, Eurotrip, Beowulf, The Critic, 15 eps of Spider-Man-TAS (1990s), 13 eps of Mission Hill, 6 eps of Star Wars: Clone Wars, 1 ep of Star Wars: The Clone Wars) as Richard, the PR seller.
Rodney Eastman (A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 & 4, 1 ep of Parker Lewis Can’t Lose) as Eric, Anthony’s drug-dealer friend.
Frank Ashmore (the original V, Airplane!, 6 eps of The Guild) as Martino.
Ty Simpkins (47 eps of The Guiding Light, Iron Man 3) as Young Anthony.

LINK URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1757746/combined

 

VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 (2012)

VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 (2012)

Twilight 5: Breaking Dawn Part 2 (2012) –
Clint: 4/5 stars, 8/10.
Carolyn: 4/5 stars, 7.6/10.
Native ratings: 4.0/5 stars Netflix, 5.7/10 IMDB.

“Twilight sucks!”
It’s not so bad. It’s just Underworld with more romance and less action.

“It sends the wrong message to women! It’s Mormon propaganda!”
Uhhh… I watch South Park and Beavis & Butt-head and Family Guy. You think I care if a bad message is sent? My favorite horror franchise is Saw.

“The relationship is so dysfunctional! It’s a trainwreck. Why would anyone want to watch that?”
HellOOOOOOO… Dysfunctional relationships have always been great to watch! Natural Born Killers, anyone?

“Vampires that sparkle! What the fuck!”
Right… I forgot that when an idea, like vampirism, is introduced into the cinema world, that it means that any other movie using that idea should do it the exact same way. For this reason, I hate the Star Trek reboot and The Fly remake. Just kidding! The whole point of a media is for people to create different interpretations of the same concept. It’s like arguing that a metal song shouldn’t have horns. Limits are stupid.

So anyway…. Of the 5 Twilight movies, this was the best. The ending could be construed as a let-down, but this one really had the least romance and, I think the most action of any Twilight movie.

Plus, it’s over now, and that makes me happy, since it’s not the greatest franchise in the world. But it was good enough to watch all 5 movies. I think movie #2 was the worst of the 5.

LINK URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1673434/combined

 

VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

The Hobbit 1: An Unxpected Journey (2012) –
Clint: 5/5 stars, 8/10.
Carolyn: 5/5 stars, 8.4/10.

Native ratings: 4.2/5 stars Netflix, 8.2/10 IMDB (174th highest-rated movie ever).

A great set-up movie, as expected. You don’t get the satisfaction of a real conclusion, as these stories are LOOONNNNG.

Intro to Gollum, Sting, finding the ring, etc… We are so ready for movie #2!

LINK URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0903624/combined

 

VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: The Avengers (2012)

VIDEO: MOVIE: REVIEW: The Avengers (2012)

5/5 stars from Clint & Carolyn
4/5 stars from Eli
3/5 stars from Parthena.

10/10 from Carolyn,
9.6/10 from Clint,
8/10 from Eli,
6/10 from Parthena.

IMDB overall rating is 8.6/10, making it the 65th highest-rated movie of all time. 42% of people rate it 10/10, and only 1/6th of people rate it less than 8+/10. The median rating is 9/10.

No real need to say much about this. Everyone saw it, and it was as awesome as it promised to be. The clashing of egos was hilarious, and it was great to see this epic heroes — built up over the last 5 Marvel movies or so — finally all together on screen at once.

And of course we’ve been watching the cartoon, Avengers:Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, so we’ve been pretty immersed in these characters on a very regular basis.

Eli: “As long as it stands on the other movies I think it was awesome. That being said I could have had a bit more about Hawk. But for pulling together so many heros’ backstories I thought it did a really good job. Plus it was really funny :)”

Carolyn: “I’m leaning towards 10/10, because it had funny banter and good battles. I can’t think of a reason not to give it a 10.”

LINK URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0848228/