Movie Review: A Trio of Shark Schlock

It’s been a while since I’ve treated myself to a nice, relaxing crappy-movie marathon and I decided to, since I’d queued several, set my will against a trio of shark-themed fin-fests.  Will I survive?  Will I turn them off in disgust and return to “Skyrim” (they do need me there, what with all the dragons and unpludered crypts)?

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Movie Review: The Thing

Sci-fi, 103 Minutes, 2011: The Thing on IMDB

I’m a huge fan of John Carpenter’s 1982 classic “The Thing” [IMDB].  Thirty years later the ground-breaking practical effects are still just as creepily effective.  The performances are some of the best ever seen in horror and the pacing and staging has rarely been topped.

The best thing I can say about this modern prequel is that I enjoyed it so much that I immediately rented John Carpenter’s to continue the story.  It just meshed that well with it’s source material.  The worst thing I can say about it is that using the exact same name is freakin’ confusing.

(They should have titled it “The Thing Begins” or “The Thing Lives” or “The Thing before the Other Thing” or really anything other than the exact same… Thing.  But they didn’t and it’s confusing.)

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Movie Review: Real Steel

Sci-fi/Action, 127 Minutes, 2011: Real Steel on IMDB

This movie was completely – and I mean utterly – formulaic.  It was unabashedly and aggressively manipulative – I mean Michael Moore was taking notes during the screening.  The plot was full of holes a giant robot could dance through.  Seriously: if you’ve seen “Rocky” or “The Champ” or “Over the Top” then you’ve seen this movie already.

This movie was also FUCKING AWESOME!

Do you know what makes average things better?  GIANT ROBOTS.  Do you know what makes giant robots better?  MAKING THEM FIGHT.  This completely average movie has giant robots fighting.  This makes it, at the risk of repeating myself, FUCKING AWESOME.

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Movie Review: The Change-up

Comedy, 112 Minutes, 2011: The Change-up on IMDB

There’s no way to ignore the elephant in the room here: the premise of this movie is (to be as absolutely forgiving as possible) is as worn as the tissues your grandmother keeps stuffed up her sleeve.  On the ranking of archetypical stories it falls someplace at the bottom of the list along with low-rent standards like “dog that thinks it’s people” or “stripper fights crime.”

That said even the most tired of premises dredged from the dryest of wells can sometimes be temporarily elevated by the right circumstances.  For the “Body swapping” genre this is exemplified by the essential Farscape episode “Out of Their Minds” [IMDB] which tossed all the clichés out on their bony asses and created something truly special.

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Movie Review: The Help

Drama, 146 Minutes, 2011: The Help on IMDB

Before getting into the movie let me say: I had no idea what this was.  My wife had read the book and demanded that we see it so… we did.  But I asked her, “what’s this about?”  She got a gleam in her eye and started, “Well, there’s this white woman that -” and I stopped her.  Basically there’s only a few kind of movies that can be described with that phrase (and my wife isn’t even remotely interested in several of them).  It’s like “This guy finds out he has a kid…” or “These kids find a map…”  Even if you can’t say exactly what’s going to happen you know basically what’s going to happen.

In any case – good movie!  You see this white woman (see what I did there?) in the 1960′s South decides to collect stories from the black maids that run the white households, raise the white children, cook the white meals and generally do anything productive or useful.  Of course truth about racial inequality isn’t exactly in high demand in 1960′s Jackson, Mississippi so drama ensues.

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Movie Review: The Smurfs

Comedy, 103 Minutes, 2011: The Smurfs on IMDB

You know how every once in a while a movie comes along that looks really bad – horribly, terribly bad – but somehow manages to end up really good?  How a movie can sometimes triumph over the shortcomings of its source material and become something special? Sometimes its writing that’s smarter than it needs to be; or an oddly perfect marriage of actor and role; or even just an infectious love of something that most people consider too silly to consider?

Well – this movie ain’t none of that.

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Movie Review: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Sci-Fi, 105 Minutes, 2011: Rise of the Planet of the Apes on IMDB

Not to spoil things by fawning overly in the first paragraph: but this is a prime example of how hollywood should proceed through its creative drought.  Comparing this to the well-produced but deeply flawed 2001 remake of the “Planet of the Apes” (IMDB) you’ll find some very educational contrasts.

The 2001 film is a remake of a classic, beloved film.  That’s already a big, red warning flag it but not necessarily a death-blow.  Remakes such as John Carpenter’s “The Thing” (IMDB) or especially Peter Jackson’s “King Kong” (IMDB) show how a respectful remake can integrate new technologies and new ideas without betraying and sometimes even embracing the source.

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