Wednesday, September 22, 2010

MOVIE REVIEWS

THE GOOD



This is a homemade video with clips from the movie, 'Moon', which is a British film that apparently was quite the award winner across the pond. It stars Sam Rockwell, a cat who is working on the dark side of the moon mining helium-3 for Lunar Industries and providing much needed energy on Earth.

Not wanting to spoil a very good movie (provided you want to think a little bit and go with the film), one of the things that I took from it was a look at what all this deregulation and changes in corporate law can and inevitably will lead to. I am sure that if there were more checks and balances on Lunar Industries, then they would not have gotten away with what they were doing. It also reminded me of the ignorance that many of the bible-thumping, education defiecient Tea Bag folks will let happen if they get a toe hold in Washington (side note: I don't think that they will be able to hold up in a general election against a credible candidate. The 'new' Sarah Palin, Christine O'Donnell is coming apart at the seams and I don't think that anyone takes Michelle Bachman seriously. It still takes some amount of 'book learnin' to get into office and many of the candidates don't have much of that...) Heck, that is giving them too much credit and besides, we know that the corporations are already getting away with crap. I mean, does anyone really expect BP to completely clean up the gulf? I don't believe that Exxon cleaned up after the Valdez proper and I am CERTAIN that another Eveready/Bhopal is ready to happen at a moments notice in the world.

'Forgetting Sarah Marshall' was a neat little movie that portrayed the rom-com as it really happens in real life, where no one in the triangle gets anything but maybe a fresh chance at their own lives. It never slipped into the trite formula that many of the movies of the same ilk does, and that was a bonus for me. Each time that it veered into the area of 'happily ever after', it came back to what really happens, even if all the preceeding stuff does go according to plan... something always seems to happen and you end up with a mess.

'WALL-E' was really a terrific movie and I just don't see how Pixar seems to have a corner on the cartoon market. Their movies tell such great stories, eternally hopeful, even in the bleakest of times.

The relationship between the hero and EVE, made me think of Nebraska and I... especially when it seems so simple and yet is so complicated. It also calls to mind how the ideal of a woman being ditzy in romance is overplayed and how emotionally attached to a relationship that men can be. Sometimes I wonder if women who cling to Palin's characterization as 'Momma Grizzlies' know how sexist that is and how unflattering a portrayal of women that statement is. Personally, I think of 'Momma Grizzlies' as insecure and actually shallow. The hide from the real world and dealing with life by letting their purpose be 'living for their children'. Yeah, I digress, but anywho...

Neb--, er, EVE would occasionally show WALL-E a small tenderness or acknowledgement... but she was always about her mission. What happened when she accomplished it and returned to report, had me thinking about HAL and what could happen if we let the corporations and all the rich continue to manipulate the culture and thinking... I was not holding out hope for the folks at the end and if you saw the movie, I will gladly debate anyone who saw it as 'happy'.

THE LESS THAN GOOD

Talhotblond was a documentary about an internet relationship that went not awry, but horribly bad. You had destroyed lives all over the freaking place. I thought it was nicely done, but because of how I associated with it, the decision was made to put it here, along with 'Invictus', which could have been so much better.

As I write, I think that '...blond' is a stand alone kind of film. It does have an association with 'the bad', and I will get to it. 'Invictus' was based on the true events of the Sprinkboks, the South African Rugby team, winning the Rugby World Cup in 1995. I thought that they could have spent more time in fleshing the story out instead of making the casual viewer work so much and someone with some knowledge of the sports hierarchy, 'buy in' to the story more.

If anyone has seen the movie, I have to wonder if they understood the importance of rugby and its social significance in South African culture? Or of the countries rank in the game?? Or that the big New Zealand star looked like a semi-major boxer that I used to get paid for sparring and had one of the best fight names, ever???

Anywho, had they went five minutes more with story that said more about the importance of rugby and delved into how much pressure President Mandela was under, I would have enjoyed the movie more. Also, it was difficult to identify with the Springboks as an underdog, because they didn't exactly elicit sympathy for the boys representing a healing country, and because the Springboks in international rugby, is like the baseball St. Louis Cardinals being underdogs to the New Zealand All-Blacks New York Yankees... I mean they were underdogs in my mind, but only kinda. 'The Boys' have fielded some very good sides up to that date, and still are a world power in the sport. Not a dominant one, but a respected team nonetheless. I thought that they could have shot the game scenes a lot better than they did, but hey, I can barely write, so who am I to tell them how to shoot a movie?

There were some good lines in the movie and it made me think of what was needed with Barack Obama as President and did not get. A transformative figure who was going to cinch up to the task. President Mandela hooked himself to the rugby team and never wavered, and that wasn't Hollywood hokum. But it was decent enough, I thought it could have been better and was expecting more, that's all I guess.

THE BAD

Or more precisely, the terrible. While I know there are some fans of the movie 'Cloverfield', I am not among them. I remember MAKING myself watch that movie... and I could not make myself watch the terrible 'Downloading Nancy'. I could tell you what I thought of what I did watch... but since I don't get paid to review movies, I am not going to make myself come up with anything about the movie, other than why it interested me.

The plot, as it were, had a relationship that was internet based at its core and thought that it may be related to an internet based relationship that I know of... but the documentary was better suited for that. What I got out of it that does apply, is that two 'sick puppies' don't need to sleep in the same pen, so to speak. 'Nancy' and her internet lover were both damaged goods, badly damaged at that. That is when I think the internet is dangerous, when two people who are tragedy waiting to happen, meet each other, as they did in that movie.

But it can be worse when there is corrupt people who are playing with the lives and minds of damaged people. That is what the other documentary is about, and I will get to that later, my brother (I thought you would!)

6 comments:

Ken Riches said...

There is no such thing as a simple relationship.

Toon said...

What Bucko said.
I'm sorry Cloverfield didn't work out because I think there needs to be a 21st Century monster movie along the lines of Godzilla.

Constance said...

oh dear, can't comment intelligently on any of that! The last movie I saw was, uh, was 2 weeks ago and it was???
Life is as complicated as someone makes it.
And as ugly as the non-thinkers like Sarah Palin and Obama create.
Or wonderful as the 10% who see clearly (like the Dali Lama) and know it is simple and uncomplicated, after all.

Unknown said...

@Annie - Obama creates non-thinkers? I would disagree - if anything, he allows too much thinking and discussion within his administration. The internal bickering and differences of opinion within his Administration are what has cost him his image of leadership.

I have a friend in New York City - a retired 'cat' who owned and operated a music studio. He articulated for me, what I knew, internally, but could not seem to formulate as an idea on my own: Obama had raised an army, but once he achieved his high office, he never called that army to service. He had mobilized the young, the minority, the disenfranchised, to his cause and they elected him - but once in office he never asked them to DO anything, and he let the so-called Christian Right run rampant over his efforts to create change and reform.

If anything, Obama creates over thinkers, rather than Doers.

betty said...

thanks for the movie reviews, Mark. I need to get out and see more of them, the only one I had seen was Wall-E; I liked your analogy between Eve and Nebraska. As to our present day people running for office, I think one has to be careful of their past coming back to haunt them when they put themselves in the public field. It is for that very reason my son should never run for office. Sadly, too many people don't realize the things they do in their youth potentially could come back and bring them down later when they find something they might be good at.

betty

Sarcastic Bastard said...

I liked Forgetting Sarah Marshall, too. Good film.

Hope all is well on your end.

SB