HUGO is the new “picture” from Martin Scorsese (GOODFELLAS). Like HAPPY FEET TWO it’s in 3D and like THE MUPPETS it’s a nostalgic revival of bygone popular entertainment and involves visiting a long-since-given-up former legend and getting him to reluctantly think about the old days. But in this case it’s the work of early cinema pioneer George Melies. So the history lesson seems more appropriate here. I wasn’t convinced that we needed to be reminded what the Muppets are, but when it’s silent film, yeah, maybe explain some of that shit, Scorsy. (I don’t feel comfortable calling him ‘Marty,’ so I use ‘Scorsy.’)
(read the rest of this shit…)
Archive for the ‘Family’ Category
Family Friendly Trilogy Episode Two: Happy Feet Two
Monday, December 5th, 2011
The most philosophically ambitious of the 3 PG-rated movies I watched is the one that’ll probly get the least credit for it, George Motherfuckin Two Men Enter One Man Leaves Miller’s HAPPY FEET TWO. And first of all I want to give them credit for spelling out the number in their sequel title and not misspelling it for a pun. I’m sure it’s not the first spelled out non-homonym sequel title in history, but I couldn’t name you another one.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Wholesome PG-rated triple feature part 1: The Muppets
Sunday, December 4th, 2011
After watching the whole HOSTEL trilogy I felt like I had to watch something a little happier, and preferably with less torture, although that’s not necessarily a dealbreaker. Well, it just so happens that three great filmmakers of the ’70s – Martin Scorsese, George Miller and Kermit the Frog – have released new PG-rated family movies in recent weeks. So somehow I ended up watching them. And you know I am hesitant to spend too much time on puppets and cartoon animals and crap like that, but honestly these movies all have a little something to say, a little more going on beneath the surface than alot of the ones they make that are supposedly for grown adults. Maybe puppet movies and cartoons are just such a pain in the ass to make that people figure if they’re gonna do one they should try to make it worthwhile. Although that wouldn’t explain the Chipmunk movies. (read the rest of this shit…)
Power Kids aka Force of 5
Friday, November 11th, 2011
POWER KIDS is another Thai action movie but for kids. It stars the same two girls from MUAY THAI GIANT plus three boys, and no giant. There’s the Thai Wil Wheaton as sort of the main kid, the Thai Corey Feldman as the slicked back hair charmer guy who thinks he’s hot shit, and the first kid’s little brother who has a weak heart.
The first 35 minutes is just like a cheesy kid’s movie about trying to get the money to buy their brother an RC car for his birthday, trying to stop the bullies at the RC track, also getting in a fight with a big drunk Australian guy (not Nathan Jones sized, but big). Then all the sudden two very bad things happen: (read the rest of this shit…)
Knockout
Wednesday, May 25th, 2011
Somebody was making fun of me the other day for always saying the full name “Stone Cold Steve Austin,” even though he’s just credited as “Steve Austin” these days. But you know what man, it’s like saying “Sir Laurence Olivier” or “President Barack Obama” or “Screen Actor’s Guild Award Winner Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges.” I am a gentleman and I show respect when appropriate. And anyway he’s not the Six Million Dollar Man, and he’s not an amazing undercover biker movie starring Brian Bosworth, he’s obviously a combination of the two. Just calling him “Steve Austin” or “Stone Cold” would be incomplete and inaccurate. You can’t just say “butter” when you mean “peanut butter,” it’s a completely different meaning.
(read the rest of this shit…)
The Karate Kid (2010 remake)
Thursday, November 4th, 2010
“Dad, I’m bored. Can I do another movie? Can we do PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS 2 or something?”
“Of course not, Jaden. You know we don’t do sequels in this family. Except for the Matrix.”
“That’s not true, dad. You did Men in Black 2 and Bad Boys 2 and you might do Independence Day 2.”
“Exactly! Y’knowhumseen? Ha ha ha!” (charming smile)
“Well, maybe you can get me in a remake. Mr. Bay does remakes all the time.”
(read the rest of this shit…)
The Karate Kid (1984)
Monday, July 26th, 2010
THE KARATE KID was such a phenomenon, man. It mainstream-popularized karate in the U.S. and was heavily imitated in everything from kid’s movies to sports movies to actual action movies. It was sequeled, next generationed, cartooned, action figured, parodied in REVENGE OF THE NERDS, postmodernly referenced and recently remade. It’s hard to remember what the context was then. I can’t really watch it without comparing it to martial arts themed movies made since then. But I’ll try to be nice. (read the rest of this shit…)
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010
The life cycle of urban slang:
Stage 1: The miracle of birth. Somewhere in the United States, young African Americans decide to start using “holla” (as in “holler”) to describe talking to each other. “If you need anything, holla at me.”
Stage 2: The use of “holla” spreads and evolves. At some point, a rapper decides to yell it to a crowd, a call for a response. “HOLLA!” It becomes a trademark catchphrase for the Rocafella label. Other rappers like it, want to get in on the action.
Stage 3: Holla becames available for home use. People full of hot air who are in jobs where it’s important to maintain an image of with-it-ness (mostly commercial radio DJs and BET hosts) overuse the term.
Stage 4: White people find out and start using it. They sort of have a sense of what it might mean, but it doesn’t matter because it’s divorced of all context. It’s supposed to automatically denote insider status or “being down.” The meaning of the word “Holla!” is now “I have heard this word, ‘Holla!’ and I can prove it by saying it out loud!”
Final stage: A cartoon animal or elderly person says it in a movie, and that’s supposed to be funny.
Alvin and the Chipmunks (not the squeakquel – the nutriginal)
Monday, March 29th, 2010
Let’s say you are an adult male, single. You’re unhappy with your advertising job, but you are a home owner, and you also own a whole bunch of instruments and recording equipment for pursuing your true passion of songwriting. You even have a very good connection – a college friend who runs a huge record label and who’s willing to listen to your demos. Only problem is your music is corny and old-fashioned, and he’s looking for terrible and new-fashioned. Also, you’re lonely because you were Afraid Of Commitment so your model-looking girlfriend left you. Then one day you steal an entire basket of muffins for no reason, and your hearing, eyesight and powers of observation are so off-the-charts terrible that you do not notice three large, talking anthropomorphized chipmunks loudly hanging from and climbing into your basket while you’re carrying it. So they hide in your house and eat a bunch of your food and for some reason you keep not hearing them even though they’re talking at normal volume in the same room as you. But you finally notice them so one of them farts in your face, they break a jar over your head and think they killed you so they discuss disposing of your body.
But when you wake up you throw them out of your house and then you hear them singing. You thought they could only talk but it turns out they can also sing. So what do you do? (read the rest of this shit…)
A Christmas Carol (2009)
Monday, November 16th, 2009
I guess I got a nuanced view on these Robert Zemeckis “mo-cap” movies. I think he’s kind of delusional if he really thinks this is the future of movies, and I was complaining about the creepiness of attempted realism in POLAR EXPRESS (and earlier in FINAL FANTASY) long before it was a common complaint with the name “uncanny valley.” When it comes to being creeped out by dead-eyed computer animation, I’m NWA and mainstream critics are Ja Rule or somebody.
On the other hand, I kind of love POLAR EXPRESS and BEOWULF and paid to see both of them twice in the theater. Never on DVD, but I’d gladly go back to see either if they were re-released in 3-D again. I love the strong atmosphere of these worlds that Zemeckis creates, and the way he moves the camera around them. I guess here he’s God and the only way He knows to show us things is through His perspective, so we can float through every crack or groove on a wall or hover high into the sky looking down on the settings and characters like they’re ants in our ant farm. (read the rest of this shit…)
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