FFFFFFS.
JUST. CAME. BACK. FROM. BEST. PREVIEW. SCREENING. EVER.
EVER.
Spoiler-free movie review, but MY FUCKING GOD i will have to contain all my feels under a read more.
watching Chicken Little for the first time
10 minutes in, already think it’s the worst opening ever (referencing other successful films/stories, and how this movie is totally not going to be that), and already annoyed me about 3 times with jokes that will be incredibly dated. Cell phones in class. Really. Also how does a completely anthropomorphic animal world watch movies like Indiana Jones? Not to mention the other unfunny jokes and uninspiring designs.
Black Swan: a quick review
How slow am I, really.
Anyhow, it was INTENSE! The ending act/climax was spinning so out of control I could barely bear it…it was conveyed so well, this downward (or upward?) spiral of madness. Not sure if I have the balls to watch it again. I wish I could find some way to question all the “how”, “what”, “omgishwhatjusthappenedhermindisfulloffuck”, but trying to detail everything out would sorta ruin the muddled reality of it all.
And Natalie Portman did well…so well…I mean, I personally hate those fragile personalities so much, and I pretty much wanted to like break her princess face and pull that stick out of her ass most of the movie. So a job well done.
Why bother giving it a rating. It deserved any award/nod it got. Nothing more for me to say.
Spoiler AHOY
War Horse: a review…then fade to black.
Went to watch this for my day-off with Emily and Kay. To be completely honest, I wanted to watch this movie only cuz I heard about Tom Hiddleston and Benedict Cumberbatch were in it. Aside from that, I knew nothing about what this movie as about. (at ALL. Never seen a trailer, etc. Probably a poor way to start this sort of movie.)
Quick summary: A horse, a high-spirited thoroughbred, is born, and a silly farmer buys him at a high price to plow a field. The farmer’s boy, Albert, trains him and names him Joey, but soon the horse is sold into the war to pay off the debt. Joey travels between tons of people, seeing all sorts of people affected by the war, and the rest is spoilers.
Rating: B
The good point of this movie is it’s very pretty, and Spielberg captured the environment very nicely. However…I was distracted I could see how many of the shots were so deliberate. The choices in the shots were done in a way that was to get the best composition, the most beautifully orchestrated shot, and it was just so planned that I couldn’t help but notice it. Things like having people moving and stopping at a certain point, not to stop moving to talk or to turn, but because that’s where the camera wanted them to go. The shots weren’t chosen to improve the story or to push the emotion, but to make it look pretty.
This detail boils up down to a super-slow pacing, as a lot of the shots were long cuts for scenery enjoyment with little to no important dialogue. The first 5 minutes pretty much passes with barely any dialogue, and it just doesn’t intrigue people about Joey at all. It’s just a horse being born. And the film rarely picks up any pace from that….as the rest is just a horse pretty much surviving.
One thing that did feel too fast in this film was how quickly characters come and go. This movie was probably removed about 10 different characters from the screen after they each had their 15 minute little plot piece. They make good use of that time to tell us who that character is and what they stand for, but in the end, with all the long shots and quick deaths, you end up barely caring for any of those characters and nothing memorable comes out of it.
A lot of this film just felt like such a set up to me…to make the perfect-looking horse movie. So then it loses the heart and meaning of how I’m supposed to care about the lives this horse touched, or even the horse himself. He did little except be there…well, and apparently be a thoroughbred that can pull a plow.
It’s not a bad movie, but not one I’d really watch again or being ground-breaking. I guess I expected a bit more from Spielberg, but I can probably blame it on the editors. Seriously, fading to black isn’t the answer to cut to the next plot point.
Home on the Range: a -fairly harsh- review
This is one of the few disney movies I haven’t seen, so I finally got around to watching it. Short summary for those who don’t know about this movie: A crazy yodeling cattle hustler is putting farms out of business, and the last farm’s 3 cows go out to hunt him down to save the farm. I guess they’re racing against time, an overzealous sheriff horse, and whatever else is thrown in their way (like…a saloon house. o_O)
But there are way too many conflicts between characters (mood swings much? ) And with a…fairly non-intimating villain, I’m not sure what I’m really rooting for aside from them to stop arguing with one another. Also I’m pretty sure there was barely any character development, story movement, or proper motives in this film. It just gets from point A to point B, with little change in character quality or depth.
Other complaints are
1) really stale slapstick jokes that i’m not sure what age group would find them entertaining (kungfu hoofed animals a-HOY) and
2) random coincidences that drive the plot…it’s like WHATTT? THIS TRAIN TRACK HERE WILL TAKE US RIGHT TO THE SPOT WE NEED TO GET TO? Also i’m always weirded out when movies introduce an eccentric pivotal character in the 3rd act (sorry Treasure Planet, I’m looking at you. I think this particular point is a personal preference tho.)
Is it bad the best part is when that one horse sounds like Kronk?
OMG THE LION KING IN THEATERS
The theater wasn’t empty…so I didn’t sing. Ah well.
but GAWDDDD SCAR HAS THE BEST LINES EVER
TIMON AND PUMBA LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
AND ANYTHING WITH MUFASA
Watched Ep 1 of the Ouran Drama! (finally)
I wasn’t one of those who was expecting it to be terrible >:P dem blasted haters!! so of course I liked it…but I always try not to let my undying love of ouran and Yamamoto Yuusuke make me biased~
The twins were the most natural to watch. OH GOD. I just applaud them to make the whole twincest thing look believable when they need to. I think rest the casting is great too (and I’m proud of those who like the casting and don’t make stupid remarks like ‘oh, they’re ugly so it’s not good enough’. GEEZ people! they will never look like anime characters, get over it!)
But in the end, I think a lot of the acting suffered from the bad direction. Having Haruhi stare wide-eyed at everything or Nekozawa act like some black blob in a white house or tossing cheesy graphics that Tamaki has to react to is just really difficult to make it seem naturally hilarious.
The editing could use a lot of work (yes, it is my forte, so I will nitpick on it). The music/sound editing could be better, no, it NEEDS to be better…it would help with dramatic comedy without relying on really terrible video effects. (even simple things like gong sounds at a “WTF” moment) And it ends up lessening the power of the heartfelt moments too, when they would suddenly cut out the music or fade too quickly. With this terrible flow, it just didn’t feel completely right…and made worse by inserting cuts of characters making the 8O doesn’t help.
i know i tend to point out the bad instead of the good…but hopefully it won’t deter you from watching it ;) 1st episodes are usually a little rough, so when they get into character development, I bet it’ll slow down and adjust really well, because I believe in the cast <3 (really, who cares if they aren’t blonde? blonde IRL in japan are like…gangsters, not princes. get over it.)
Unpopular opinion: I don’t like the way people compare movies based on past expectations.
I always see people on tumblr laughing at Dreamworks and how terrible their attempt to make films are in comparison to Pixar. Sorry, guys, news flash: Dreamworks is its own studio. Just like Blue Sky (Ice Age) and Nickelodeon (Rango) are their own studios, but I don’t see you comparing those movies to Pixar ones all the time.
Perhaps Dreamworks seemed like Pixar wannabes in the past (coming out with Shark Tale and Antz at the same time was a pretty bad idea), but have you noticed that the animation quality in the past years is actually REALLY GOOD? Like, the texturizing, background designs, and animation movement? So what if they had a period of time where they made stuff that were inferior duals of Pixar movies? They’ve seriously improved AND I think Jeffery Katzenberg has finally gotten over getting kicked out of Disney and made some quality movies like Kung Fu Panda, How to Train your Dragon, and Megamind. But people continue to put it down, as if it would be TERRIBLE if Glenn Keane would move to Dreamworks.
If you’re going to hold new movies to their past, then I suggest everyone praising Disney for Tangled take a good look at Dinosaur, Chicken Little, and Meet the Robinsons. If you want to be “fair”.
Yes, Pixar movies are god-tier, but that’s not fair to hand out ratings of like 33% to things that don’t meet Pixar “quality”. I’m sure Cars 2 is still well animated and beautifully designed, but seriously, 33% is pretty extreme.
This is the reasoning why Atlantis, one of my favorite movies, is always so low ranked. The animation is good, the story is great, so what if there’s little time for character development? Does that really need a 48% on a RT scale? Especially when most of the critics are going “oh, because it’s not as beautiful as Beauty and the Beast or The Lion King”…well, shit, if we’re all going to be compared to Academy Award winners like that, you better relook at your rankings of Ferngully, RT.
I’m sure I’ve made a lot of weird comparisons/contradictions in this post to sarcastically undo a lot of thought processes…I just want people to appreciate the movie, where it stands, on its own feet. How good is the plot? Scripting? Animation? Music? Not “how good is it in comparison to XYZ?”
Perhaps you’ll enjoy more movies that way. Give things a chance.
OMG SHERLOCK AND THE SILK STOCKING WITH SHARK FASSBENDER WAS THE BEST THING EVER
SO MUCH SHARK FASSBENDER
it was like
DAN DUN
DAN DUN
DANDUNDUDNUDNDUDNDUNDD
AND OMFG OMFG
SPOILERS
THERE WERE LIKE
TWO
TWO
FASSBENDERS
TWO FASSBENDERS WITH SICK SHOE FETISHES
WTF
ONE POKER FACED FASSBENDER AND ONE EMOTIONAL VIOLITALE FASSBENDER
I COULD BARELY STAND IT, IT WAS SO HILARIOUS AND CREEPY AND BEAUTIFUL IN A WRONG WRONG WAY
OH GOD JUST STICK A FORK IN ME I’M DONE
/FLAIL
Penelope: a quick review
Oh god, I really needed this movie. So many serious movies and finally something really whimsical and cute.
Quickest review: it’s really an adorable movie, it’s not so romantic but more like a coming of age/acceptance movie. A modern fairytale with great outlandish side characters, good grounded protagonists, and generally a good character development. An interesting reflection of society (a mite extreme, but that’s alright) and definitely has it’s magical moments :D
And, just to let my bias show through….OH GOD JAMES IS DEFINITELY SHOWING HIS CHARM SKILLS IN THIS ONE. I’m sorry, I just kinda go “Gaaauuuuuuuh…” for guys with that sort of scruffy look. /undignified comment
Rating: A…I can imagine this being one of my favorites later on in life
Spoilers! (disney-related…had to)
