Movies 5/29-6/8
Fanboys (2008)
Rating: 
I’ll admit there were some fun parts to this movie, and it’s certainly full of Star Wars movie lore. However, it’s just too dorky enough to get excited about ever watching again. The Star Wars “fanboys” vs. Trekkies brawl in Iowa is definitely the high point of the movie.
Requiem for a Dream (2000)
Rating:
Just another movie to watch in an attempt to finish out the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die that I’ve slowly been working on (492 to go… yikes). Somewhat interesting at times, more for the cinematography representing times the addicts were on a high than for the story itself. Ultimately, it’s another on the list of ones I didn’t really need to see before I die.
Irma La Douce (1963)
Rating:
The story seems so wrong, but Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine pull off a decent comedy. Apparently, this was adapted from a musical. Thankfully, there wasn’t much singing here (I’m still not a huge fan of them). If the plot idea doesn’t sound good to you, then you should watch these two in The Apartment, which was outstanding.
Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)
Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)
Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)
Rating:
I’m going to rate all four of these as a whole. Any movie by itself isn’t all that outstanding, but when you take them all together, they are surprisingly good. For whatever reason, I didn’t know there were sequels to the original Planet of the Apes. I had watched the 1968 original (which was good) and the 2001 remake (which was bad) early last year, and finally noticed I needed to watch these as well. If you hadn’t already figured it out, I’m a bit of a completionist. :) These sequels were actually pretty “smart” science fiction, though they would bore most people nowadays. Stay away unless you are a hard-core science fiction fan.
Enter the Dragon (1973)
Rating:
I apologize to any Bruce Lee fans out there, but this was highly overrated. I’ve heard the stories of him moving so fast they had to do crazy camera work to deal with his moves. Maybe I’ve seen too much Jet Li or Jackie Chan lately… and even if they suck compared with Bruce, I find them far more fun to watch. Oh, and if I had my pick of martial artists, I’ll take Toshiro Mifune over all of these guys any day.
Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
Rating:
Was it a slow year at the Oscars? I don’t get all the hype. Yes, this was a good movie, but it was not that good. Given the ending, I expected to care so much about the characters that I would have a tear in my eye. I didn’t really care at all by the time it was over. A 5-star movie would have done that; especially one with five bajillion awards. I’ll be interested in someone else’s take on this movie. I see this situation as another great example of how film quality has continued to plunge over the years.
Valkyrie (2008)
Rating:
I’ve become less and less of a fan of Tom Cruise over the past several years. His movies continue to end up quite unstellar (is that a word?). This was a pretty well-done film based on one of the assassination attempts on Hitler during WWII. It’s tough to explain why I didn’t end up loving the movie, but I think it had to do with lack of character development. It’s like they tried to develop the main characters, but you don’t end up caring that much for the “good” guys. Maybe that was the point?
Chocolate (2008)
Rating:
The plot was kind of silly, but the action was great fun. JeeJa Yanin was outstanding as the autistic girl who learned martial arts just by watching TV and other fighters. Apparently she performed all the stunts as well, which is even more impressive. Well worth watching if you are a fan of these types of movies.
Shinobi: Heart Under Blade (2005)
Rating:
This, however, was not a well-done martial arts movie. Don’t bother with it. As much as a movie described as “X-Men meets Romeo and Juliet” sounds great, this just doesn’t pass as that much fun. Ok, that part about “sounds great” was a joke. ;)
The Brøken (2008)
Rating:
This movie launched an hour-long task of seriously revising my Netflix queue. Here’s another movie in the list of those where I wonder how in the world each one ended up in my queue. Long, boring, and ultimately not much of a thriller. I hate those where you basically know the end within the first several minutes of the movie, especially when the “getting there” part is just plain too long.
City of Ember (2008)
Rating:
While this movie appears mostly good enough for small children (I had it on J’s Netflix queue), there are a couple parts that might be too scary (involving some weird creature chasing the kids). I ended up finding it too long, with not much payoff after two hours. That’s simply too long for my kids’ attention spans, especially when there just isn’t enough action throughout that length of time. I decided to let them skip it and watch something we own instead.
House on Haunted Hill (1958)
Rating:
Simply doesn’t meet the standards of a scary film these days. I love Vincent Price’s dialogue, though. He should do voiceovers for more movies. Oh wait… didn’t he? ;) The constant screaming from the women in the movie became quite tiring.
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