Change Your Image
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"Knowledge itself is power." ~Francis Bacon
"Can we change the world? No, but hell we can all try." ~Rupert Murdoch
"Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm." ~Winston Churchill
Ratings
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Reviews
Open Range (2003)
Pleasant, Well Crafted, Exhilarating Movie
Today I watched Open Range. It was a pretty good movie. Many may not like it because it is a Kevin Costner movie (Costner seems to have many haters).
Open Range features a very explosive and action-packed climatic showdown near the end. Guns fire everywhere and bodies literally fly (which according to Mythbusters is not realistic). Before and after this showdown, the film develops the characters and plot. Free-graziers go through a town led by a tyrant whose men manage to kill one of them. Two of the free-graziers, played by Costner and Duvall, vow to head into the town and take down the tyrant to avenge the death of their friend. In true Western style, morality is settled by violence. However, in this Western, violence is used against the "state" and against the law, which goes against Biblical principles as well as putting the protagonist's actions into the realm of terrorism. Nevertheless, the American Constitution claims if government is corrupt then the people are to overtake it and that is why citizens bear arms.
To conclude, Open Range is a great movie. It is violent but there is nothing too gory, gruesome, or shocking. There is a romantic element to the movie attached, which is pleasant and satisfactory.
I Am Legend (2007)
An Original and Creative Edge-of-Your-Seat Thriller
I am Legend is about a survivor of an infectious disease that has wiped out what seems like the entire human population. We look at the world from the eyes of Robert Neville (Will Smith) a virologist who has to cope with loneliness as he hunts for food and works on finding a cure in his underground laboratory. The symptoms of this infectious disease is aggressive, monster-like behavior.
I am Legend is a very anxious and suspenseful movie. This can be good or bad depending on what your preferences are. I was not happy with the number of times this film resorted to sudden bursts of sound. It may be an effective way to induce a reaction in the audience but it is cheap and manipulative. The MPAA gave this movie a PG-13, but I would caution parents about sending in little children because at times the movie is frightening. There is violence, loud gun fights, and blood. Many reviewers say the ending is poor, but I happen to think the ending is very creative and satisfying. All in all, a very good movie.
The Golden Compass (2007)
An Intense, Visually Pleasant Movie
The Golden Compass takes place in what is described as a parallel world, so the rules of nature in this world is different to our world. In this world, an organization called the Magisterium threatens to dominate and gain a monopoly on truth. After they kidnap children, a young girl named Lyra goes off into the north to rescue them.
The special effects and imagery in this movie are very attractive. The story is a very interesting one, and the protagonist Lyra is played well by Dakota Blue Richards.
Like each Lord of the Rings movie, this movie is not complete. I did not realize this until after the movie ended. To have to watch another movie or read another book is disappointing. Personally I feel that a movie should be complete from beginning to end. This saves viewers the hassle of having to find every piece.
While watching the movie, many concepts are thrown in very quickly, many of which are confusing concepts about the nature of the parallel universe, for example, the daemons, as well as subplots like the fighting bears. These many things all thrown at you quickly can lead to confusion among viewers, especially for children. For me, it left me feeling detached from the movie.
Another criticism is the intensity of the movie. This is not a light movie as I expected. There is a lot of rough fighting, killing, and violence, and it is all performed with very loud music and sound effects. At the end of one scene involving fighting bears, a small child in the theater started screaming in fright.
The Village (2004)
Don't Believe the Trailer. It is a Noble Lie.
The Village is about a group of people who isolate themselves, similar to the Amish. They have been told that there are creatures around them. Fear grips the community when dead animals are found all around them and they hear noises coming from the woods.
We later learn this is not the case at all. The monsters that surround the village are fake. Everything is an elaborate hoax perpetuated by the elders designed to keep the villagers from leaving. It is done to keep the villagers' way of life alive, to protect their culture.
I didn't watch this movie in the cinema where it was perfectly quiet or on DVD where I could read subtitles, but instead I watched it on TV, so sometimes it was difficult to hear the actors talk. In most if not all Shyamalan films, characters tend to talk very quietly, often whispering. This I don't think is a problem if there is enough silence in the room.
This is not a horror movie like House of Wax where we are served endless blood, gore, and homicides, all delivered with sudden music swells during moments of silence to shock the audience. I thought the mood was creepy and throughout the film there was a mild feeling of anxiety, but no masked killer will appear from nowhere to make you jump in your seat and there will be no over-the-top torture scenes to make you cringe like in Hostel.
One member of IMDb, bartond57, gave what I believe is a very good commentary on the film: "I felt is was a story about the power of myth, and how far people will go, even for good reasons, to perpetuate their myth. Innocence is a topic as well. How does one keep people innocent and trusting in a evil, sinful, world. And how far should someone go to 'protect' one's innocence? I grew up in a conservative religious subculture. This movie speaks to that experience. In the end, the decision by the elders was to continue their myth, regardless of the circumstances. I found this disappointing, but how true is it today with many religions? Religion can be a good thing, but it is always a struggle to know how much 'innocence' should be protected. How sheltered should we be? But even in the movie, the evil they were trying to run from (murders) took place in their own edenic setting. In other words, we can't run away from human nature. It is part of the human condition."
I feel the same way. The movie says a lot about how much of a role deception plays in keeping communities together. It reminds me of what Plato said about the Noble Lie, how the survival of a population relies on grand myths. People need to believe in ideas greater and more significant than their own individual selves or else they will descend into nihilism, which leads to chaos and a breakdown of society. These ideas are still popular in modern times with people like Strauss and even today's politicians like Wolfowitz.
Pretty Woman (1990)
A Repetitive and Downright Offensive Movie
Pretty Woman is about a street prostitute who one day meets a rich man driving in a Lotus. Originally the man plans to use the woman but as the story progresses they fall in love.
When the street prostitute goes into nice hotels, her clothes, her behavior, etc is out of place. The two cultures collide. What I found repetitive about the movie is how it goes on and on about these differences. She doesn't know how to tip, she doesn't know how to dress, and so on. I got the message early on, but the movie had to keep giving me more and more examples of how she was different.
Not only was the ending of this movie predictable but it also made me cringe because what the man did was so embarrassing. You'll have to see it for yourself, but the ending is just so Hollywood.
All in all, this movie is a encyclopedia of stereotypes, a movie that glamorizes the patriarchal world-view that rich men in fast cars will make any woman's problems disappear with the signing of a marriage certificate just like the idea in the old sexist days that knights in shining armor will sweep the princess of her feet. These gold digging women who seek men for money are nothing but glorified whores. Well, that's what the film is about, isn't it?
The Transporter (2002)
I Didn't Like the Robotic Fight Scenes
The Transporter is about a man named Frank whose job it is to transport things. He lives his life by following rules designed to get him out of trouble. It is clear early on that many of his clients are criminals. However, he is professional and does not pass moral judgment.
One day however he breaks one of his rules. He looks inside a package in the trunk of his car to find a woman named Lai. By breaking his rules, he spirals into trouble.
It's interesting to see people torn between professional conduct and moral conduct, as it is a decision we all have to make, and different people will make different decisions.
As a criticism, the movie's fight sequences seem too choreographed. Frank's fighting style is not smooth and flowing but rigid and sequential.
The damsel in distress Lai is very attractive, and sometimes I wonder whether this sends the message that only beautiful women deserve to be saved.
The movie concerns smuggling of people from Japan to Europe, presumably France. At the end we learn that the refugees seem to respond to Japanese. Since refugees tend to flee from poor and unfree countries to rich and free country, what just doesn't seem right is why Japanese people would be smuggled to Europe. Japan's per capita GDP is higher than most European countries' per capita GDP.
Little Children (2006)
Good Film but its Theme is Mixed
After directing In The Bedroom, Todd Field now turns his attention to Little Children, a movie about adultery between housewife Sarah and law graduate Brad. Each is already married and each has a child. Sarah has a little girl and Brad has a little boy. The story not only looks at this adulterous relationship but also looks at a pedophile who has been released into the neighborhood.
Sarah, a former university student who has a masters in English literature, speaks about the book Madame Bovary with friends. She says the book is about a woman who is trapped and rebels against the establishment. I have never read Madame Bovary but I think what is happening in the film is supposed to mirror what happened in the novel. Sarah is tired of her dull life and decides to break free by having sex with another man. Her husband even cheats on her but in a much more bizarre way as you'll see if you watch the movie. While Sarah has the affair with Brad it is clear that her daughter suffers. While Brad has the affair it is clear that the suspicious wife also suffers. What this tells me is that although you can rebel against social norms, by pursuing what it is you want you can also hurt other people. At the end, both Brad and Sarah decide not to continue with the affair and the narrator says that although people make mistakes and although people have bad pasts, it's the future that matters.
Running side by side with the story of adultery is the experience of a pedophile named Ronald. The pedophile in this story is not depicted as some monster but just as an ordinary person (for most parts of the movie, at least). An ex-policeman named Larry has started a hate group that harasses Ronald. They go around spreading fliers, telling everyone that a pedophile is living among them. This creates a moral panic and as this moral panic is stirring throughout the community even Brad and Sarah conform to social norms and start fearing the evil pedophile. Larry is no saint himself. He accidentally killed a kid in a mall and, as the story progresses, he ends up killing Ronald's mother.
One of the things I noticed in the film is the hypocrisy of characters. Although Sarah is quick to judge and put down the pedophile at first because his perversion conflicts with social norms, her adultery too conflicts with social norms. This suggests that people may while conforming to social norms also rebel against it at the same time.
One of the points I made before was how Sarah and Brad had the opportunity to right the wrongs. They were convinced that an affair was right but then decided against it. At the end, Ronald castrates himself, signaling a desire to conform to social norms. Larry, who once said that perverts like Ronald should be castrated, tries to help Ronald by getting him to a hospital. So by hating pedophiles Larry at the beginning was upholding social norms and towards the end by helping the pedophile he is rebelling against it. This sequence differs from the experiences of Brad, Sarah, and Ronald who all rebel first and then end up conforming. But Larry's hatred of Larry could be interpreted as anti-social as many in the community start to tire of his extremism. He starts off as a man of hatred and turns into a man of compassion. Interpreted this way, Larry too starts off rebelling but in the end conforms.
So what I got from the movie is the following: There is a conflict between the individual will and the will of society. Due to our psychological limitations we both rebel against social norms as well as uphold it, and the cognitive dissonance that results from this paradox can lead to tragic consequences.
The movie is adapted from a book and with the translation from book to film came changes. In the book, the pedophile Ronald does not castrate himself but rather admits to the murder of a little girl. This was apparently removed from the film so the audience could have more sympathy with the character. I suspect Todd the director was trying to portray Ronald as less rebellious than he actually was and this completely goes against the spirit of Madame Bovary who believed in rallying against the establishment. The director then really gave this film a conservative makeover whereas the original novel was a lot more realist in theme.
Kate Winslet plays as Sarah in this movie. Kate has played in many lesser-known movies after the blockbuster Titanic. Many of these post-Titanic films are films I have seen recently, such as Finding Neverland (not bad) and Quills (excellent).
All in all, I enjoyed this movie a lot. I've been thinking about it for a long time but haven't fully understood everything. I suspect the director may have botched the job and changed the story too much during translation from book to film. By trying to make the story appealing to a cinema audience he may have destroyed any thematic consistency. Many people I speak to say the movie is just a satire on suburbia and marriage and that's it. (The sterility of suburbia: isn't that just so clichéd now?) According to them, this movie is about the imperfections in all of us. But all this suggests that there is an objective good and bad. What if perfection is imperfect or imperfection is perfect?
Kung fu (2004)
A Funny Film with Great Special Effects
Kung Fu Hustle is about a man who dreams of being a ruthless gang member. In his childhood he tried to be good by trying to help a deaf girl. He quickly learned though that good guys never win in a world where evil triumphs. As hard as he tries he has no aptitude in evil. He finds his calling, turns on the bad guys, and with his power delivers justice.
The fighting scenes and special effects are the highlight of this movie, but there are times when Chow seems to overdo the computer effects. The film has a unique humor and doesn't take itself too seriously. Even when women get shot and people get hacked to death, the film maintains an upbeat tone.
When the main character Sing gives up on morality, it mirrors the way many people grow up, lose their innocence, and compromise their morals for the sake of amassing power and wealth.
Babel (2006)
Good Movie, but Unsatisfying, Superficial, and Stereotypical
Babel is a film by director Alejandro González Iñárritu, who was also the director of 21 Grams. Like 21 Grams, Babel is about different stories of people's lives, and all these stories are linked in some way. The movie stars Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett as American tourists. Elle Fanning, little sister of Dakota Fanning, plays one of the American parents' kids.
After watching the film, the message that I took from it was that even though bad things happen, often there's nobody to blame. The tragedy happens because of a chain reaction of unfortunate events and bad luck.
Unlike in 21 Grams, the different plot lines seem too independent. As a result, the film ends up looking like a collection of multiple short stories rather than one whole film itself.
The movie, I though, felt very superficial and sometimes stereotypical. The American are just so superficially American with all the imagery and stereotypes emphasized to the extreme. The same can be said of the Mexicans and the Japanese. The real world is a complex mess, but while watching the movie I had the impression that the writer had a simplified perception of reality in his mind: Japanese people are like this, Americans are like that, a tragedy is supposed to use this kind of music, this kind of camera work, etc.
While watching The Door in the Floor, another film with Elle Fanning, one of the characters in that movie talks about the art of telling a story. He says the following: "Everything in fiction is a tool: pain, betrayal, even death. These are, you know, these are like, uh, different colors on a painter's palette. You need to use them." The problem with this film is that, for me, it really seems as if the writer knew he wanted the film to be tragic and just dabbed the usual elements of a tragedy, lost kids, close-ups of people's faces as they cried, etc. With solemn music and scene after scene of people crying and walking around dazed, the film has all the imagery and tone of a tragedy. For me this story really felt like a story, as if all the parts were just put there for the sole purpose of manipulating the audience.
The Italian Job (2003)
Unrealistic but Entertaining
The Italian Job is about a robbery done for money and for revenge on a man who betrayed them in an earlier robbery.
First off, this is a very entertaining, very cool movie. It glamorizes thievery but also shows a noble side among thieves. Charlize Theron is by far the most attractive woman ever, and in this movie she is just sizzling hot. From every angle she is a work of art.
One of the things about this movie that annoyed was the branding. I don't know whether the brands were deliberately there for marketing purposes or whether they were essential for the plot. At the beginning of the film we notice the divers are wearing Casio G-Shocks. One hypothesis is that the film is marketing Casio watches. The other hypothesis is that G-Shocks are normally what divers use anyway because of the brand's shock resistance. There are plenty of references made to Aston Martins, and the film probably help market many new MINIs. Of course, they're not going to use a Ford Suburban for this robbery because of the SUV's size and slowness, so the MINI was probably necessary. The MINI is an icon for many people. Even though MINI is owned by BMW many believe the MINI is a symbol of Britishness. The car's status as a cultural icon is probably what justifies its price premium, as it is about double the price of a Corolla. Probably not worth it for a small car if you were totally utilitarian, but most people don't buy cars just to get from A to B.
While watching The Italian Job, I kept thinking to myself how unrealistic the whole plot was. Everything was planned to perfection and only one small thing had to go wrong for everything to fail. For everything to fall into place so perfectly is like flipping a coin twenty times and getting it to land heads up every single time. The film is definitely over-the-top but that was probably what made it so entertaining in the first place.
Io non ho paura (2003)
A Very Warm and Thrilling Movie
I'm Not Scared is about a young 10-year-old boy who discovers another young boy chained in a hole. At first, he is scared about what he sees, but he comes back and slowly learns more about why the boy is there.
Another highlight of the movie I should mention is the soothing music. I particularly liked the soft strings of Pachelbel. This music complimented well with the views of Southern Italy.
Thematically, this film is about children, their innocence, and how this contrasts with the issues of adults. In one scene the young boy is playing in the fields and in the distance he sees giant agricultural machines picking up wheat. Children often play in these fields and these machines could easily slice any of them up if they got in the way. Regardless of any intrinsic goodness in children or in wheat fields, the machines exist due to the powers of commerce. That little boy chained inside the hole is there for the same reason.
Living Dolls: The Making of a Child Beauty Queen (2001)
A Realistic and Sad Story
Living Dolls is about Swam Brooner, a five-year-old little girl who competes in child beauty pageants. Sometimes I wonder whether she wants to do this because she often seems sad. Her smiles on-stage seem fake. Her mother is extremely pushy and critical, telling her daughter to look up, not sing too low, etc. At the end, Swan wins prize money but the family has spent much more than the prize money on clothes, transport, makeup, accommodation, etc, so really the whole exercise was not profitable. If the same effort were put into trying to get her into college I think that might have been more profitable. Whether the child will be happier in college or in beauty pageants is something I don't know but I would bet on the former.
I have recently heard that Swan's mother died and she is living in Alaska now. She is 13 and no longer doing beauty pageants. Even though she won some beauty pageants, she lost as well, and it was really sad to see her face in this documentary when she lost.
Some comments were made about the observation that although many of the children in these child beauty pageants were very pretty, many of the mothers of these children were obese and homely. This suggests the possibility that these mothers are trying to compensate for their failures by succeeding through their children. That is, the parents are using their children to live their own lives.
The Real Dirt on Farmer John (2005)
Impressive and Inspirational Story
A few days after the New Year I caught this film on TV while I was lying on the couch lazily. What kept my attention was how Farmer John ate the soil at the beginning. This I thought was weird, and Farmer John is a very unconventional character. His story, which spans his whole life from childhood to today, is incredible. It was interesting to watch how paranoid some of John's neighbor and the community became because John is very unconventional. The disappointing behavior of these people contrasts to the CSA shareholders from Chicago who are willing to take time off from their presumably urban lives and get dirty in a farm. John believes there is a character or a soul to his farm, that it is more than just dirt, plants, and buildings. Although I don't find this idea particularly sensible, I appreciated his enthusiasm and optimism, and it's good to see the city folks giving him a hand.
What I would like to know about this film is why many farms in America were closing. I'm guessing it was because of tariff reductions.
Wife Swap (2004)
For a Reality Show, There is too Much Acting and Posing
I've watched a few episodes of Fox's Trading Spouses and I liked some of the episodes a lot. I especially loved the episode that takes a man from Southern America and puts him in a New York city apartment with a very rich New York family. The two families were different, yes, but the Southern man tries to fit in with the new culture and does a very good job. The host family was nice and treated him like a guest. What was nice was the way the host family carried on as normal.
Most episodes of Wife Swap are different, however. Like Trading Spouses, the families are completely different, but the problem is that instead of simply having the wife living with a new family the show tries to start a fight by getting each wife to read some sort of manual about the other family and then after a while to set rules. The wives who swap don't even try to adapt to the environment. They are intolerant of other cultures. They loudly and proudly hold on to their way of life, thinking it is superior, and try to change the other people in the process. I hate it most when the wives tell us at the beginning who they are. You don't learn about who someone is by listening to what they say because their ideals about what they should be will get in the way with what they really are. There's a reason why people buy status symbols like large cars and large houses. They are trying to express themselves and project signals to others so they can be recognized as belonging to a certain social identity. Too many families use Wife Swap as a vehicle to show off their identity. Everything the parents do on the show, whether it is sport or shouting at their kids, is just another weak attempt to conform to an image or a stereotype.
It's not just the contrived conflict that makes Wife Swap so painful to watch but also the fact that you know the wives are posing for the camera. It is so clear these women are desperately trying to show off their identity for the world to see. In other words, they are acting, and that goes against what I expect in reality TV.
The Prestige (2006)
Complex Plot with Twists upon Twists and a Horrific and Shocking Ending
I went to this movie with my brother and his girlfriend. Only about one in eight seats in the theater were taken, not that many. Most of the people in the audience seemed young.
The movie starts off ordinarily. The first half is a series of events. The movie jumps from one time period to another. Many scenes left me scratching my head. A magic trick consists of three stages: the pledge, the turn, and the prestige. Like a magic trick the movie started out ordinary. Borden and Angier are two magicians in deep rivalry. They go to great lengths to sabotage the other's work. It got to the point where every time they were performing a magic trick on stage I would anticipate something would go wrong. Many of these tricks involved guns and axes, so I was preparing myself for something very loud and shocking.
After about halfway through the rather ordinary story of rivalry turns interesting as the two magicians read their diaries. But still I felt disoriented and didn't fully grasp everything. Towards the end though, everything made sense, and the plot fell together. It is a very complex and very shocking story. It is not just the plot that was excellent. The film seemed to have a lot to say in terms of themes. I won't give away too much but at the end the little girl Jess watches the magic trick that involves the little bird disappearing. She's amazed by it. She may want to know how the trick is done but once you realize how it is done it's probably not a good idea to tell her. Essentially the world is simple, cold, cynical, and miserable, but these tricks give happiness because they suggest this is not so. This deception is not isolated to simple magic tricks. The vanishing bird trick is analogous to what happens to the magicians. Some people will go to great lengths for an art.
I enjoyed this film not just for its plot. I started to think that deception is just in the magic shows. They are not just in the characters and their lives. They are everywhere. It watched this movie six days before Christmas and in many ways Santa Clause is a magic trick, a deception. But it's more than that. I look at the football fans in stadiums and wonder whether they are just individuals proud of their teams or country or whether they are just totally deceived by marketers. In my life pretty much everything that gave me happiness turned out to be quite simple, quite pessimistic in reality, whether it's religion, family, or love. There is no magic, just science. There is no emotion, just biochemistry. No country, just politics. No morality, just power. Like the vanishing bird trick, you just don't want to know how it's done.
Now when I spoke to people after the movie most of them didn't mention these ideas to me. They were too busy asking me about the mechanics of the plot, who was who, why this happened, and so on. But I think if you plan to watch the movie you should focus on more than what happened on screen. Try to infer certain concepts from the film and relate these to what you already know from experience in your own life. You may be quite surprised.
The movie probably shouldn't be seen by small children. One reason is because of the on-screen deaths that occur.
The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course (2002)
Good Conservation Message
This movie certain is strange. It is like one of Steve Irwin's usual episodes except a plot is thrown in. Sometimes you don't know whether a scene is real or whether it is fake. The message the movie provides is good though. Its message is that humans interfere with nature by leaving behind rubbish and poaching animals. Irwin has a Keynesian approach to environmentalism. He gets in and really interferes with nature but it's supposedly for the good of the animals themselves. With Irwin dead now it's disappointing for the animals if his efforts were actually beneficial. Irwin's career made him many millions of dollars and instead of doing what other multi-millionaires do like buying a sports car (he drives an old-looking Landcruiser) he put that money into buying land so that developers and poachers can't touch the animals. This practical and pragmatic approach is a fresh change to the usual all-talk-no-action that characterizes most academic environmentalists nowadays. But like I said, with Irwin gone, it's not looking good.
The Polar Express (2004)
Movie to Get Children into Christmas Mood
The Polar Express is about a boy who doubts Santa Clause. This doubter finds a train one night that is going to the North Pole. When this boy gets on the train he falls upon one problem after another. Without giving away too much about the story, in the end the experience teaches the boy to believe in Santa Clause. A parent who wants to indoctrinate his children into Christmas and Santa Clause can try to use this film as a tool to do just that.
Visual effects in this movie are very impressive. It is animated but often the characters look very life-like.
Personally, I don't believe in Santa Clause as most adults presumably don't, but lying to children and then staging an elaborate conspiracy to keep them believing I thought was morally troubling. If lying is bad how is this a good thing? Perhaps the person who said that lying is bad was lying? The lesson I learned from all this is that lying is not bad or good. Lying is just lying and everyone lies to some degree, but most people lie because they want other people to be happy. Lying to your children about Santa Clause may make them happy, so whatever works is okay. This is a very pragmatic approach, one that even politicians can use to justify lies to voters.
In the movie the boy could not hear Santa's bell and he could not see Santa either. However, when the boy wanted to believe he could hear the bell and he could see Santa Clause. I thought maybe the message of this scene is that you will believe if you want to believe.
The nerdy kid in the movie, when the train started moving on ice, believed that everything that happened was an optical illusion. The conductor says that even things you cannot see are real. At the end the conductor gives a ticket to this nerdy kid with the words LEARN on it, but the conductor covers the R, so it reads LEAN. The kid is sure it said LEAN based on what he could see but just because he couldn't see the R it doesn't mean it didn't exist, and so this is something he could learn from.
At the beginning of the movie, when the conductor was asking whether the protagonist kid wanted to get on the train, I was thinking, "Don't accept rides from strangers." A message of the movie is that you should believe and have faith in things even if you can't see it. What about faith in the goodness of strangers? Suppose a child molester drives up to a child and asks the child whether he wants to go for a ride. The child asks where the car is going and the child molester tells him he's going to the North Pole. The child might say, "My mom told me not to accept rides from strangers." The child molester might tell the child to believe that everything was going to be okay, to trust him. What I am trying to say is that a little doubt is helpful. If you always believed in everything, if you always followed your emotions, then you will likely be the victim of a scam or you will be exploited. So this movie might present some questionable values.
I saw this movie with a friend and the friend told me that lying to children about Santa Clause isn't really lying. You are just presenting to them something that they can understand. He gave an example. Mechanics for example, as taught in first-year college is not the "actual explanation" but a simplified model. It is simplified so that less intelligent people can learn it. He argued that Santa Clause is like a simplified model. But if Santa Clause is a simplified model, what is it a simplified model of? Furthermore, my friend argued that these simplified models are substitutes for the "actual explanation." Simplified models help explain certain things, e.g. Newtonian dynamics explains how objects move and allows predications to be made. But what does Santa Clause explain? How the presents appear under the Christmas tree? But the person making that explanation (the parent) is putting those presents there so that person knows he is lying. Furthermore, Santa Clause is not a simplified model. It is not simple! Santa Clause flies around the world in a short period of time delivering billions of present to the world's children. This throws up more questions than it can answer and trying to explain all those questions will complicate things. For example, if the doubting child asks, "How does Santa Clause deliver all those presents on time?" then the adult can give an explanation like, "Santa bends time by modifying the universe." How is a child supposed to understand this? It is much simpler to say, "No, there is no Santa Clause. Those presents appear there because Mom and Dad put them there." In summary, if you want a film that will put children in a Christmasy mood then The Polar Express may be good.
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Many Enjoyed it But You May Not
I watched this movie with some friends at the cinemas a long time ago and I'm reviewing it now because ads on TV about the sequel jogged my memory. I can see now that Curse of the Black Pearl is very popular among IMDb members, especially among females and young people. If you are a young female you are much more likely to think you enjoyed this movie than if you are an old man. That's what the demographic breakup statistics say. I remember being very disappointed with this film and one reason why I was disappointed was because it was so long. I remembered getting up at the end of the film and because the film was so long my butt was aching as if someone had jabbed a needle in it. I am not averse to long movies but this one in particular was just not at all entertaining. The first reason for this lack of entertainment I think is the behavior of the characters. Johnny Depp's character is deliberately crazy. If one of my friends were to act like that in real life I would stare at him and after some time I would ask him, "Man, what is wrong with you?" In this movie, I am consistent with my behavior and badly wanted to ask Johnny Depp's character what was with the crazy behavior, but of course Depp is just acting and I obviously can't talk to the character through the theater screen, so that just left me feeling frustrated. Most of the movie is filled with humor that I didn't find funny at all, but many in the audience obviously thought it was very funny. As with the Depp character the humor was just crazy and weird, but of course humor is very subjective so it's a matter of taste I suppose.
Another issue I'd like to bring up are the fight scenes, which I thought were very disappointing as well. The reason is because they were very plain. Usually in a fight scene I like to see something coherent. I want the camera to stay and I want the fight participants to engage in intense, suspenseful, but also aesthetically pleasing fights. The fight scenes in this film don't have that elegance. A bunch of people just get together and the camera cuts and shakes as if we're looking at everything from the perspective of a drunk man.
The plot is another sorry part of the movie. That woman (as you can see I'm not good with names) was your typical annoying pretentious woman and at the end when she kisses the guy I actually said out aloud in the theater, "Oh, please!" How clichéd can you get? It's like a fairy tale your parents might read to you as a kid.
The Amityville Horror (2005)
Scary Gory Film
A family find a cheap house that seems expensive. The discount is due to a murder in which a man kills his whole family because he heard voices telling him to do it. As the movie progresses the man becomes more psychotic, the kids and the wife are starting to worry about him, I hear there is an older version of this movie but I have not seen it so I cannot make any comparisons. This movie is the newer version and it is pretty scary in my opinion. I was watching it at night in my room with headphones while lifting weights. The film often left me more breathless than the weights did. The scares are mainly from sudden grotesque images popping up accompanied simultaneously by sudden organ noises. There were moments when characters are walking around and it's absolutely quiet and I have have a feeling something is going to come out and I just fell like I want to turn down the volume. In my opinion scares of these sorts are kind of cheap but they certainly are effective. We humans I think have evolved to be alert when something sudden happens and many modern horror movies seem to take advantage of this. But once the adrenaline starts pumping it's only a short-term thing. When you come home and out of nowhere someone screams out "Surprise!" because they've prepared a surprise birthday party for you then you are scared because of shock and this response is expected. But after you realize that everything is safe then it no longer troubles you. What I'm trying to get at is that I'd like to see a movie that not only gives you shocks that haunt you for the first five seconds after that shock. I'd like to see something that haunts you say one year or more. After you finish the movie you're safe in your home, everything's okay, and the scariness is over.
All in all though the remake of the Amityville Horror is enjoyable. From what I hear it's a true story so that makes it kind of scary. Chloe Moretz as the cute little girl acts really well. This movie contains blood and violence so keep away if you are too sensitive.
Transporter 2 (2005)
Good Clean Action Movie
Transporter 2 stars Jason Stratham as a man whose job it is to transport things. In this movie we see him transporting the son of Mr Billings a government official. All of a sudden a group of people kidnap the little boy and then release him. However, as the transporter works out what happening he realized that the kidnapping is more than a kidnapping.
The selling point from the movie is the action and it delivers very well. The car chases are very fast. Stratham's Audi doesn't just look good it also seems to drive well. In one scene he drives the car off a car park tower and into a level on a skyscraper. In another he flips the car upside down in the air to remove a bomb underneath. Unfortunately for this film the explosions suffer from computer-generated-flame syndrome.
Stratham is also involved in some good fight scenes. He's able to climb things like trucks very quickly. Some of the fight scenes in which he fights several people have him taking on one person at a time. I'd really like to a see a movie in which the protagonist takes them all on simultaneously. It would require very fast moves but it would be far more realistic and interesting. The closest I've seen to this is in Police Story when Jackie Chan fights a group of people in a shopping mall.
People die in this film that is no doubt but all the deaths are clean and sterile deaths, so most younger people shouldn't be put off too much.
Jersey Girl (2004)
Raquel Castro is Excellent. Religious Parents Should Watch for Sexuality
Jersey Girl stars Ben Affleck as Ollie Trinke, a New York City publicist who likes to live the city life, i.e. eat sushi, hail cabs, hire maids, and so on. He marries Gertie (played by J Lo) and they have a baby girl also named Gertie. Affleck stuffs up on the job and has to live with the girl outside of New York. Ollie however wants to do his old job and so this story is about the conflict between family and career.
It's a fairly standard plot but Raquel Castro is really cute as the seven-year-old girl and the girl at the video store played by Liv Tyler is just so strange. All the girls including the little seven-year-old seem very open about sexuality. As a warning to any religious parents this movies contains young little children exposing their private parts to each other. You don't get to see any details of the anatomy though although you do see an infant girl's thingy. The movie also contains frank conversations about sex, masturbation, and so on, e.g. "So how often do you masturbate?" "Do you use pornography as a stimulant for masturbation?" and other dialog along those lines.
EuroTrip (2004)
Funny Jokes and Lots of Nudity
Some parts of this movie were rather funny, such as the French guy in the train, the English soccer hooligans, the robot, the Vandersexx...pretty much all the jokes were funny, although the storyline used to put it all together was rather boring.
I detected some homophobia in this film, and this seems to be a trend among Hollywood films.
The last time I saw Michelle Trachtenberg was in Inspector Gadget and Harriet the Spy. It disturbed me a little to see Michelle so grown up and kissing other boys. She doesn't go naked in this film, which I suppose is good, although I must say I really like Michelle a lot.
Marketers probably targeted this film towards young males, but looking at the ratings demographics the females seem to like this movie more.
Don't expect this film to do anything other than give you a few laughs and at times make you mildly aroused with all the women's breasts exposed. There is also male nudity.
If you're a parent and you show this film to your children, they will probably come to the conclusion that wild sex is normal and common, so the only parent who would do that to their children are very liberal parents. Conservative and religious parents should probably keep this movie away because it is very sinful.
Elizabethtown (2005)
Awkward, Embarrassing, Emotionally Simplistic
There is something about Cameron Crowe that makes me squirm. His movies are just so weird. I always get the impression that Crowe wants the audience to feel a certain emotion and he tries hard to induce that emotion in the audience. E.g. scene X is supposed to be a happy scene and therefore music Y will be used. There is nothing wrong with the director trying to make the audience feel a certain way, but it is better if the director does so without making the audience know how he is being influenced.
For example, when Drew talks to his father's ashes, you can't hear what he says. We can only see his facial expressions. Loud music plays in the background, signaling to us what sort of emotion we're supposed to feel. It would be better if Crowe could just show us the conversation between this man and the ashes and then let the audience judge for themselves how they chose to respond to it emotionally. Instead, Crowe's loud music and frequent cutting from one bit to another leaves me feeling very awkward.
Another example is when Drew talks on the phone with the woman. Little bits of the whole conversation are shown, such as the woman saying, "Good lord!" You don't really understand what it is they are actually talking about, you just get the general impression that this is supposed to be significant.
And then you have those moments when you just look at the screen and wonder why the characters are acting so crazy, such as when the characters start dancing by themselves.
So many people act so strange in this movie. For example, when Drew tells Chuck about how his father died, Chuck then starts crying and hugging him. But might seem normal but consider that Chuck is pretty much a stranger.
The couple leave behind ashes in a room and then run back to get it. While running, Crowe puts on his loud music again, suggesting that this running is special, but I look at the screen just wondering what is so special about it. I just don't get it.
With Crowe trying to induce certain emotions in us, his attempt is hit and miss. Most attempts miss and the audience is left feeling uncomfortable. Maybe a few times he succeeds, but a film is more than the sum of its parts and poor moments ruin the whole film.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)
I liked Georgie Henley. Otherwise, an Ordinary Movie.
We watched The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. How was it? Let's just say that the first half was good. I liked the mood created by the music, which was really nice and consisted of smooth woodwind noises.
But then the movie just got bad. I really didn't like some of the messages of the film. I didn't like it how the professor says that it is "logical" to trust in your family. What if your dad sexually abuses you?. Genetic relatedness means nothing. The kindest person in the world may be someone with completely different genes to you and the most evil person in the world may be your brother, sister, or father. Saying, "Trust in your father. He knows what is good," may sound nice, but what if you were giving this advice to Adolf Hitler's hypothetical children? The way Edmond all of a sudden changes I thought was weird. Still it all seemed unrealistic. The worst part about the movie would be the battle scene. It's the same old thing we've seen in The Phantom Menace, Lord of the Rings, Troy, Alexandra, and maybe more movies. When some concept is popular, the media executives really milk it, don't they? Whether it's martial arts wire-fu or reality TV, surely people must get sick of the same thing over and over again. I was yawning throughout the whole battle scene. We've seen it all before. Some other people are saying this movie was more incoherent and sanitized, and yes I suppose these are fair concerns.
I should also add that Georgie Henley, the girl who played Lucy, was strangely realistic in her acting. She was also a very likable character.
The Stepford Wives (2004)
Don't Expect it to be the Usual Comedy
I've seen the Stepford Husbands and knew what happened in that movie, but I have not seen the original Stepford Wives nor have I read the book. Frank Oz's Stepword Wives is a good film. Most of those I watched the movie with expected it to be mainly a comedy, but it turned out that much of the jokes in the movie weren't really that funny according to my tastes. Those who come to a movie expecting to laugh usually force out laughter but after a while this died down. The movie started to get serious when there is the threat of Nicole Kidman's character being changed from the career woman to the slave wife. It's a moment of dread.
Towards the very end of the movie, however, there is a twist that I thought was quite strange. Throughout the film I kept thinking, "These men are horrible. Why would they do this?" The sad thing is that many of the attitudes these men have mirror the attitude a significant number of men have. Many women out there also buy in to the perfect wife ideal. With this connection with reality came a feeling of horror and shame almost. Then, as it turns out, the whole thing was orchestrated by an old woman. So I started scratching my head and kept wondering what this meant if translated into the real world. Men control women but they do so because of women? Maybe there are two types of women: the high-flying career women and the old women seeking the chivalry and gender roles from a more traditional era. Maybe the conservative women are the ones influencing men to be dominating and this is hurting the career women. Perhaps men are the way they are (dominant and controlling) because of the demands of these types of women, who ruin everything for all other women.
Another aspect of the film that annoyed me was the way that everything had to be spelled out and verbalized. The plot itself revealed much about the gender themes.