Well, I'm off to a slow start this year. 21 movies from April-July. Just a little burned out on movies, I guess. But at least I got some legitimate A's this time.
Appaloosa—Well written, acted, and directed, but it felt like an Oscar-bait experiment more than a movie. It told a story, but there was never really any point to it. I know that’s terrible to say for a movie that was good in every respect, but I just didn’t “get it”. It’s not that there was anything complicated going on, I just don’t know why this story deserved the movie treatment. This is a tough grade. Technically, it earned a high B (or even a low A), but nothing grabbed me at all about it. B.
Disaster Movie-- I hate myself for borrowing (NEVER paying) these DVDs because they’re usually crap. This one was crap as well—but not as offensive to my sensibilities as I expected. By the time these films come out (and certainly by the time I get to them on DVD), the jokes are already old. Luckily, the Juno backlash didn’t happen right away, so those barbs were a bit more timely (if you even remembered Juno by that time). I was also happy to see some of my favorite MAD TV actors (Ike Berinholtz, Crista Flanagan, and Nicole Parker [I love Nicole Parker])in the film, playing numerous characters.
Mostly lame, but provided a few chuckles. D+
Earth— film. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, this film was visually stunning (no surprise as it incorporated many scenes shown on the eye candy TV miniseries Planet Earth of a few years ago) and must be seen on a big screen. I feel the same way now as I did then: it was simplistic (no “real world” tragedies—namely death—was shown), but very moving at times. I am still amazed at the shots that showed how big the planet is and then were transformed to show how small the planet is. There aren’t enough films out there that really show us the wonder of this planet. See this one. A-
Ghost Town—A “small” movie that worked well for what it was. A man with some relationship issues dies and tries to keep his wife from marrying another cad, all with the help of a dentist who can see the dead. Greg Kinnear went against his grain a little bit by playing the dead man who is not a very good person or husband, Tea Leone was great as the wife, and Ricky Gervais was perfect as the dentist. The film had some funny moments as well as some touching moments. It wasn’t great, but it’s definitely worth watching. B-
The God Who Wasn’t There—This documentary started out very interesting. It, actually, followed my line of thinking of Jesus and the Bible: the book is not literal, and Jesus may or may not have been an actual person. But the fundamental point of creating the Jesus character was as a metaphor for human existence. Jesus is actually a character like many other heroic characters in fiction. One folklorist/mythology scholar made a “test” for classic heroes, and found 22 points that many of them have in common. Jesus came in 3rd, with 19 of the 22 (behind Oedipus and Theses, I believe). Fascinating stuff. Then the doc went into the early history of Christianity (which I like finding out about; even as an atheist), and I was surprised to learn that Paul (a person I found a great affinity for in my teen years) was the only person spreading the Word of Jesus out to the masses at the time (the Gospels weren’t written until after 70 AD—40 years after Christ’s death). The funny thing about Paul—he didn’t believe (based on his writings) that Jesus actually lived on Earth. It wasn’t until later that people started believing this man was actually a God on Earth. I guess I didn’t catch that little bit of knowledge when I took an interest in him years ago. And I doubt it’s widespread knowledge in general as it defeats the purpose a little in church to have this great Christian not believe the essential “truth” of Christ: that he lived and died as a man.
There were other revelations for me, and one of the most interesting was when the documentary asked what people thought of Jesus the most. The result was people found the most meaning in a movie about Jesus’ suffering: The Passion of the Christ (or as my friend once brilliantly nicknamed it: “The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre”). Even as a person who is interested in the man (or the myth), I have never been interested in watching that movie. I find the teachings of Jesus (many of which are very great to follow, regardless of your religious beliefs) to be much more worthy of remembering than the suffering. Apparently, that’s not what sells the whole thing for Christians. Anyway, the doc tracked every instance of violence or blood in the film and then listed them out, per minute, for our knowledge. (For the record, something like the first 20 minutes were relatively blood-free, and then from minute 20 until the end, there were only six minutes that had no violent actions or blood. The doc also mentioned how director Mel Gibson had to have made conscious decisions to add some of the blood spurts because they don’t happen as the movie showed.)
So I did like this movie—up until the last ten minutes. Then I got to see that the creator had an axe to grind about his childhood (religious) school. He may have had a point; that kids are being indoctrinated to not ask tough questions about the religion that’s being spoon-fed to them. But all the fairly open-minded ideas he had presented earlier were forgotten as he asked questions of the high school principal that he knew would get a negative reaction. And then, at the very last ten seconds of the film, he went quite a bit over the top, and that killed the movie for me.
Listen, if you’re a Christian, you want no part of this movie. Faith is hard enough to justify, and having the facts presented to you like this will make it tougher (unless you subscribe to the “Devil planted doubt about Jesus centuries earlier than his birth, so no one would believe” theory that Christianity has to justify denying these “facts” as stated in the doc). But those of you who are on the fence about belief—or just would like to learn more about those beliefs and the historical significance of them—will find many things to ponder here. I did learn a lot. Obviously, the director had a point to make-- and he went about it the “right way” for nearly the whole thing—but he hurt his thesis by his antics at the end. I’ll give it a B for the most part, but it drops to a C+ with the ending.
Hulk Vs.— Two stories in one: First, we had Hulk Vs. Thor in a battle I’ve read countless times before in the comics. Secondly was Hulk vs. Wolverine, which was pretty much a retelling of Wolverine’s origin (didn’t the Wolverine film this spring take care of that?). Nothing new or exciting here except Deadpool. Now there’s a character I’d watch for 80 minutes (although I’m sure they’d make him way over the top; Deadpool is a great supporting character; probably “too much” for a lead role, though). C-
I Love You Man—film. A “chick flick” starring two guys. That, in itself, is pretty funny (c’mon, chick flicks are usually stupid—and almost always follow the precise formula of: great girl who can’t find a good man bumps into a guy and they 1. hit it off immediately OR 2. hate each other immediately—and then grow to like each other—and then get on a whirlwind, “nothing can stop us now” romance until a misunderstanding breaks them up, after which a passage of time takes place and they bump into each other/get set up by meddling friends and realize they are right for each other). That alone could have made the film work, but stars Paul Rudd and Jason Segal brought way more to this film than just that. Both actors “bring it” for every role I’ve seen them in, and they were on fire for this one. Those two made an okay movie into a good one. B
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