For peace of mind, yes. I'm one of those people who feels more annoyed if I can't watch all the installments of a series even if I know that it's not going to be good.
Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched
- Thread starter Th3Ch33s3Cak3
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Not yet, at least. An American Tail isn't on streaming anywhere for free/subscription, so right now Secret of NIMH is as far as I can go with Don Bluth without skipping movies, which I don't like to do.
Well, uh, when you can see all fourteen at once, enjoy that. There are some good ones but they're largely pretty ordinary. Aside from the first one, which is an undisputed masterpiece.
Alice in Wonderland (1999)
I genuinely think that it's widely ignored, if not outright unknown, that this live action movie from 1999 is the best adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice books and it's not even particularly close.
People like the old animated Disney movie and I'm not gonna ruin it for them but I always felt it was cutesy, americanized kitsch. I respect Jan Svankmajer as much as the next guy but his dark, surrealist live-action/Stop motion version is more of an interpret than it's an adaptation. This made for TV movie from the 90's, directed by Nick Willing, genuinely stands as the only version that I think mostly covers the original text in a way that leaves out very little and finds a visual style that is its own without burying Carroll under auteurist indulgences.
Willing adapts Alice as what it is, a work of comedy that's highly amusing to children and absolutely hilarious to adults, set in a whimsical world of childlike dream logic that's occasionally alienating but mostly bright and wonderous. This adaptation doesn't only feature some of the most charming set designs and elaborate puppets, courtesy of Jim Henson's company, but also an all star cast that includes the likes of Whoopie Goldberg (The Cheshire Cat), Ben Kingsley (the Caterpillar) and Martin Short (The Hatter). Not to mention the March Hare who would go on to have a very memorable supporting role in Inland Empire.
This is one of those movies that had a surprisingly major part in, broadly speaking, making me who I am today. It's one of those things that are easily said but I genuinely believe that seeing it as a child played a major part in helping me discover my love for surrealism and absurdity. A large part of that was, of course, due to the virtues of its original source material (later, Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass would be the first books I'd ever read in english) but this version in particular is what made me think of it not as some inscrutable abstract work or as a stupid childrens story .
This version does, in my opinion, the best job of translating the qualitites of the book with its beautiful sets and ensemble of character actors. The dialogue in this conveys very nicely the fact that Lewis Carroll had an understanding of the English language some would consider unnatural, featuring prose and wordplay that are still unmatched.
What this version adds is a framing device about Alice overcoming her performance anxiety which... honestly, I can take or leave and I never felt brought that much to the table and a number of musical sequences which range from decent enough to actually incredible. Gene Wilder sings a duet about soup with an animatronic griffin and let me tell you, it's some of the greatest shit I've ever seen. It also somewhat meshes both Alice books, where it adapts practically all of Wonderland and some of Looking Glass. I captures just about all the individual segments of the former and most of the most iconic ones of the latter, with some exceptions.
I don't know, Alice in Wonderland means a lot to me and if I had to choose one movie adaptation to call the definitive one, it's definitely this one. A lot of different people have done a lot of different things with it. Disney's animation department turned it into a marketable children's story, Svankmajer turned it into an experimental film, Tim Burton turned it into... a poor man's Chronicles of Narnia and I could probably go on for a while but this version from 1999 is Alice to the core. An absolute childhood classic for me and by all means a movie that I feel deserves way more acknowledgement than it gets.
No, seriously, tell me this isn't absolute kino:
I genuinely think that it's widely ignored, if not outright unknown, that this live action movie from 1999 is the best adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice books and it's not even particularly close.
People like the old animated Disney movie and I'm not gonna ruin it for them but I always felt it was cutesy, americanized kitsch. I respect Jan Svankmajer as much as the next guy but his dark, surrealist live-action/Stop motion version is more of an interpret than it's an adaptation. This made for TV movie from the 90's, directed by Nick Willing, genuinely stands as the only version that I think mostly covers the original text in a way that leaves out very little and finds a visual style that is its own without burying Carroll under auteurist indulgences.
Willing adapts Alice as what it is, a work of comedy that's highly amusing to children and absolutely hilarious to adults, set in a whimsical world of childlike dream logic that's occasionally alienating but mostly bright and wonderous. This adaptation doesn't only feature some of the most charming set designs and elaborate puppets, courtesy of Jim Henson's company, but also an all star cast that includes the likes of Whoopie Goldberg (The Cheshire Cat), Ben Kingsley (the Caterpillar) and Martin Short (The Hatter). Not to mention the March Hare who would go on to have a very memorable supporting role in Inland Empire.
This is one of those movies that had a surprisingly major part in, broadly speaking, making me who I am today. It's one of those things that are easily said but I genuinely believe that seeing it as a child played a major part in helping me discover my love for surrealism and absurdity. A large part of that was, of course, due to the virtues of its original source material (later, Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass would be the first books I'd ever read in english) but this version in particular is what made me think of it not as some inscrutable abstract work or as a stupid childrens story .
This version does, in my opinion, the best job of translating the qualitites of the book with its beautiful sets and ensemble of character actors. The dialogue in this conveys very nicely the fact that Lewis Carroll had an understanding of the English language some would consider unnatural, featuring prose and wordplay that are still unmatched.
What this version adds is a framing device about Alice overcoming her performance anxiety which... honestly, I can take or leave and I never felt brought that much to the table and a number of musical sequences which range from decent enough to actually incredible. Gene Wilder sings a duet about soup with an animatronic griffin and let me tell you, it's some of the greatest shit I've ever seen. It also somewhat meshes both Alice books, where it adapts practically all of Wonderland and some of Looking Glass. I captures just about all the individual segments of the former and most of the most iconic ones of the latter, with some exceptions.
I don't know, Alice in Wonderland means a lot to me and if I had to choose one movie adaptation to call the definitive one, it's definitely this one. A lot of different people have done a lot of different things with it. Disney's animation department turned it into a marketable children's story, Svankmajer turned it into an experimental film, Tim Burton turned it into... a poor man's Chronicles of Narnia and I could probably go on for a while but this version from 1999 is Alice to the core. An absolute childhood classic for me and by all means a movie that I feel deserves way more acknowledgement than it gets.
No, seriously, tell me this isn't absolute kino:
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Heretic 7/10
This recent horror movie portrays what is truly one of the most horrific situation imaginable- being unable to escape a conversation with a pompous mansplainer atheist acting like he's the first one to notice that religious doctrines have contradictions.
Specifically it's Hugh Grant welcoming a couple of Mormon missionary young women into his house only to use terror to try to change their faith. The conversations take a much larger portion of the run time than I would have guessed so your enjoyment will depend on how much you wanna hear Hugh Grant really Hugh Grant it the heck up. And since he's a heck of a character actor when he wants to be I enjoyed it well enough.
The actual violence and scare stuff was pretty standard.
Overall, a decent entry into the set of horror movies that are "about" something as long as you don't think about it too much.
One of the two lead actresses is also in Yellowjackets and I'm pretty much down to watch anything any of those ladies are in because that is maybe the best TV cast around.
This recent horror movie portrays what is truly one of the most horrific situation imaginable- being unable to escape a conversation with a pompous mansplainer atheist acting like he's the first one to notice that religious doctrines have contradictions.
Specifically it's Hugh Grant welcoming a couple of Mormon missionary young women into his house only to use terror to try to change their faith. The conversations take a much larger portion of the run time than I would have guessed so your enjoyment will depend on how much you wanna hear Hugh Grant really Hugh Grant it the heck up. And since he's a heck of a character actor when he wants to be I enjoyed it well enough.
The actual violence and scare stuff was pretty standard.
Overall, a decent entry into the set of horror movies that are "about" something as long as you don't think about it too much.
One of the two lead actresses is also in Yellowjackets and I'm pretty much down to watch anything any of those ladies are in because that is maybe the best TV cast around.
A ★★★½ review of Spider-Man (2002)
“You can’t print that, that’s slander!” “It is not! I resent that! Slander is spoken. In print, it’s libel.” To say there is a lot of production history leading up to this film is a big understatement. Just for the sake of brevity, I will start in 1993, where a script treatment for a Spider-Man...
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Iron Man 3 - 7/10
Yes I am that heretical asshole that thinks this movie was the weakest of the three Iron Man movies though I agree it’s character development for Tony is critical to future events and the Infinity Saga would be poorer for its absence.
However I really was bummed that after spending no small amount of effort reimagining the Mandarin and landing a plum actor like Ben Kingsley for it that they did what they did. I’d have adored seeing Kingsley beat the shit out of RDJ with magic Kung Fu from space. And I think it’s kind of a shame they didn’t let Pepper keep a stable version of the Extremis powers, that would have been cool. I know there was a shirt that retconned the Mandarin thing but it never went anywhere.
But my rating of 7 is a very strong 7 since Shane Black got his paws on this one and whatever poor decisions he’s made on other projects, man still has the touch that made stuff like The Last Boy Scout work so well.
Next up, Thor: The Dark World.
Yes I am that heretical asshole that thinks this movie was the weakest of the three Iron Man movies though I agree it’s character development for Tony is critical to future events and the Infinity Saga would be poorer for its absence.
However I really was bummed that after spending no small amount of effort reimagining the Mandarin and landing a plum actor like Ben Kingsley for it that they did what they did. I’d have adored seeing Kingsley beat the shit out of RDJ with magic Kung Fu from space. And I think it’s kind of a shame they didn’t let Pepper keep a stable version of the Extremis powers, that would have been cool. I know there was a shirt that retconned the Mandarin thing but it never went anywhere.
But my rating of 7 is a very strong 7 since Shane Black got his paws on this one and whatever poor decisions he’s made on other projects, man still has the touch that made stuff like The Last Boy Scout work so well.
Next up, Thor: The Dark World.
Rise of the Guardians, 5/10
I'd been somewhat curious about this movie, and it's got Santa in it, so I figured why not, 'tis the season after all. Stunningly generic title aside, this movie's actually got a pretty original premise, best summarised as "childhood fairytales as superheroes". It's got Jack Frost, the Sandman (sadly not the cool Neil Gaiman type), the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny acting as an Avengers-esque team protecting the innocence and joy of children. But when The Boogeyman (played quite delightfully by Jude Law) makes his comeback, it's up to the team to stop him.
Sadly the movie is almost as generic as its title. Despite the multitude of things going for it, it ends up being a very by the numbers family film. But I wanna focus on the positives first: the Boogeyman is actually a pretty cool villain, being a bit of a snarky, smug dickhead. But he's also allowed to be vulnerable and have a degree of depth, he's not just a generic dark bad villain. He and Jack Frost have a decent dynamic, having more in common with each other than they'd like to admit. There's some quite interesting visual design and ideas as well: Easter egg golems, the Tooth Fairy being a hummingbird for some reason, the Sandman having zero dialogue for example. Jack Frost also has quite an intriguing mystery related to him, which the payoff sadly doesn't live up to.
But the movie altogether ends up being just mediocre, and I'm not meaning that this could have been a great movie to begin with. It just suffers from classic problems like pacing issues, trying to do too much in just about 90 minutes, and not having the balls to go as dark as you could or be as creative as you could. The villain is probably the best example of both: you could do so much interesting and creepy visual stuff with a villain who's supposed to represent fear of the dark and the monsters under your bed. You could have him appear only as a shadow, or only in the darkest parts of the screen, or as an unseen presence until the very end. He could have been so creepy and memorable. But no, he's just a monochromatic snarky dude who only occasionally has some visual flair, despite Jude Law clearly having fun with the role. Jack Frost has this mystery about his identity which is actually built up really well with an almost eldritch element relating to the moon, but it's revealed he's just some random fuck named Jack who fell into a frozen pond, which is just super disappointing. You could have had him be revealed to be Jack from Jack the Beanstalk for example, that could have been cool.
The pacing feels rushed in exactly the way a lot of animated family films feel. There's very limited moments of silence of slowness, character arcs and dynamics feel superficial and the movie feels it's never allowed to breathe. In trying to characterize 5 main characters and getting through the plot in about 90 minutes it ends up feeling like skimming the surface of what could genuinely be a really interesting mythology and world. This concept would be right at home as a streaming service animated show, because the glimpses of what we do see and hear hint at a whole world of possible adventures. Chris Pine is hopelessly miscast. His performance isn't bad, but the mismatch between his voice and the design of Jack Frost prevents it from ever jeling naturally.
The movie also just feels dated in quite a lot of ways. Despite this being from 2012 (meaning after Toy Story 3, which still looks like a billion bucks), the CG looks quite dated: the designs are bland, some of the lighting is kind of ehhh, and the look of the movie overall is just quite flat and dull. This was smack dab in the middle of Hollywood's 3D push, so there's tons of scenes which you can clearly tell were made with 3D in mind. It's also got this annoying element which feels specific to animated films of this era, which I could call "setpieces of pointless bullshit". Meaning that multiple times the movie will suddenly make an exciting scene out of something that doesn't forward the story at all, and is there only to tokenly give some excitement for the kids. For example, when they first leave the North Pole in Santa's sleigh, their departure is this like 30-second long scene where the camera is swooshing and wooshing and characters are going "whooo", but all that's really happening is them doing the equivalent of getting off a driveway. It just gives off an air of desperate pandering where the movie is just jingling keys in front of you to keep your attention.
So yeah, pretty bland and forgettable overall. Dreamworks were clearly angling for a franchise with this since both Madagascar and Shrek were over (sans the ciriminally underrated Penguins of Madagascar movie), but it was a pretty big box office bomb, losing some $70 million. But hey, if this was one of the stepping stones on the way to modern Dreamworks which eventually gave us The Last Wish, The Bad Guys and The Wild Robot, I'm not too mad about it. This is still a film where people clearly cared, and that's always something.
I'd been somewhat curious about this movie, and it's got Santa in it, so I figured why not, 'tis the season after all. Stunningly generic title aside, this movie's actually got a pretty original premise, best summarised as "childhood fairytales as superheroes". It's got Jack Frost, the Sandman (sadly not the cool Neil Gaiman type), the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny acting as an Avengers-esque team protecting the innocence and joy of children. But when The Boogeyman (played quite delightfully by Jude Law) makes his comeback, it's up to the team to stop him.
Sadly the movie is almost as generic as its title. Despite the multitude of things going for it, it ends up being a very by the numbers family film. But I wanna focus on the positives first: the Boogeyman is actually a pretty cool villain, being a bit of a snarky, smug dickhead. But he's also allowed to be vulnerable and have a degree of depth, he's not just a generic dark bad villain. He and Jack Frost have a decent dynamic, having more in common with each other than they'd like to admit. There's some quite interesting visual design and ideas as well: Easter egg golems, the Tooth Fairy being a hummingbird for some reason, the Sandman having zero dialogue for example. Jack Frost also has quite an intriguing mystery related to him, which the payoff sadly doesn't live up to.
But the movie altogether ends up being just mediocre, and I'm not meaning that this could have been a great movie to begin with. It just suffers from classic problems like pacing issues, trying to do too much in just about 90 minutes, and not having the balls to go as dark as you could or be as creative as you could. The villain is probably the best example of both: you could do so much interesting and creepy visual stuff with a villain who's supposed to represent fear of the dark and the monsters under your bed. You could have him appear only as a shadow, or only in the darkest parts of the screen, or as an unseen presence until the very end. He could have been so creepy and memorable. But no, he's just a monochromatic snarky dude who only occasionally has some visual flair, despite Jude Law clearly having fun with the role. Jack Frost has this mystery about his identity which is actually built up really well with an almost eldritch element relating to the moon, but it's revealed he's just some random fuck named Jack who fell into a frozen pond, which is just super disappointing. You could have had him be revealed to be Jack from Jack the Beanstalk for example, that could have been cool.
The pacing feels rushed in exactly the way a lot of animated family films feel. There's very limited moments of silence of slowness, character arcs and dynamics feel superficial and the movie feels it's never allowed to breathe. In trying to characterize 5 main characters and getting through the plot in about 90 minutes it ends up feeling like skimming the surface of what could genuinely be a really interesting mythology and world. This concept would be right at home as a streaming service animated show, because the glimpses of what we do see and hear hint at a whole world of possible adventures. Chris Pine is hopelessly miscast. His performance isn't bad, but the mismatch between his voice and the design of Jack Frost prevents it from ever jeling naturally.
The movie also just feels dated in quite a lot of ways. Despite this being from 2012 (meaning after Toy Story 3, which still looks like a billion bucks), the CG looks quite dated: the designs are bland, some of the lighting is kind of ehhh, and the look of the movie overall is just quite flat and dull. This was smack dab in the middle of Hollywood's 3D push, so there's tons of scenes which you can clearly tell were made with 3D in mind. It's also got this annoying element which feels specific to animated films of this era, which I could call "setpieces of pointless bullshit". Meaning that multiple times the movie will suddenly make an exciting scene out of something that doesn't forward the story at all, and is there only to tokenly give some excitement for the kids. For example, when they first leave the North Pole in Santa's sleigh, their departure is this like 30-second long scene where the camera is swooshing and wooshing and characters are going "whooo", but all that's really happening is them doing the equivalent of getting off a driveway. It just gives off an air of desperate pandering where the movie is just jingling keys in front of you to keep your attention.
So yeah, pretty bland and forgettable overall. Dreamworks were clearly angling for a franchise with this since both Madagascar and Shrek were over (sans the ciriminally underrated Penguins of Madagascar movie), but it was a pretty big box office bomb, losing some $70 million. But hey, if this was one of the stepping stones on the way to modern Dreamworks which eventually gave us The Last Wish, The Bad Guys and The Wild Robot, I'm not too mad about it. This is still a film where people clearly cared, and that's always something.
The Mandarin thing is in retrospect actually kind of interesting, because Iron Man 3 came out right before Marvel started really delving into the cosmic and fantastical side of their mythology - as evidenced by the very next film being Thor: The Dark World. It was probably the last remnant of that mindset where some concepts from comic books were just deemed too silly to ever adapt, so they kind of threw one of Iron Man's arch nemeses under the bus in that regard. Nowadays, or even in 2014-2015, I totally believe they would give Ben Kingsley magical rings and kung fu powers, because why the hell not?