Movie Review: The Secret World of Arrietty

Family, 94 Minutes, 2011: The Secret World of Arrietty on IMDB

This is Studio Ghibli’s eagerly anticipated adaptation of the massively popular children’s book, “The Borrowers”.  While not faithful to the storyline of the book it’s abundantly clear that the filmmakers have a deep and meaningful respect for the source material.

For those few unfamiliar with the premise: our world is shared by hidden, tiny people who tuck themselves away in our walls and foundations.  They furnish their lives by ”borrowing” small items and using them in ingenious ways.  A boy, suffering from a heart condition, is sent to live in a large old house with his aunt.  There he encounters the young borrower Arietty, one of the last of her kind, and they develop an unexpected friendship.

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Movie Review: The Artist

Romance, 100 Minutes, 2011: The Artist on IMDB

“The Artist” is a wonderful film that masterfully tells a timeless story.  However if you watch it in the theater you’ll have to prepare for some things.  Perhaps ten minutes into the movie you’ll have deal with the older woman loudly whispering to her husband, “What, they don’t talk in this whole thing?”

Later, and periodically, you’ll also need to deal with a wonderful assortment of snorts and snores as people nod off, wake-up and then nod off again.  You see “The Artist” is a silent film in black-and-white.  Some people just aren’t prepared for that.

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Movie Review: Harry Brown

Drama, 103 Minutes, 2009: Harry Brown on IMDB

Harry Brown is an ex-marine who, shortly after losing his wife, losses his oldest (and only) friend to gang violence.  Harry Brown decides to get even.  You can say that this is just “Death Wish” with a British sensibility and you’d be right.  However if you thought that was an insult you’d be wrong.

The movie starts out incredibly strong with one of the most powerful opening credit sequences I’ve ever seen.  Frenetic, grainy cell-phone footage that horribly demonstrates the lack of humanity in our villains is intercut with tiny, almost illegible credits fading quietly across a black screen.  The extremes inherent in this are nurtured throughout the film but are never more starkly or effectively conveyed.

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Movie Review: A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas

Comedy, 90 Minutes, 2011: A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas on IMDB

I entered into this with mixed feelings.  Having adored the outlandish abandon of the first installment I looked forward to the second… and absolutely hated it.  It felt forced and spiteful where the first was organic and hopeful.  It just didn’t gel for me for whatever reason.  I’m happy to announce that “A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas” is a fine return to form.

It may be the simple fact that, like the first, this one concerned itself with unreasonable hardships in the pursuit of simple pleasures.  All Harold wants – all he needs – is for the first Christmas he hosts for his wife’s family to go well.  Of course half the fun is the certain knowledge that it won’t.

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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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