So If anyone still checks this site, you may notice a severe lack in posts. This is for several reasons.
1) I've been really busy with school work and activities.
2) I've kinda been lazy.
3) I haven't seen many movies recently.
I apologize any I will try to start posting more. However, I've been writing more things recently so I will not be posting just reviews. (I'll probably be changing the title of the blog). But I will be discussing things like life the universe and everything, thoughts on other things and updates on my own movie.
So thank you for being patient, and I assure you, there will be changes coming soon.
Signed,
-Ian Deming
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Avatar
Avatar, James Cameron’s newest movie, has had enormous hype since the Neolithic era. Finally the movie was released, shockingly crushing Princess and the Frog at the box office. In just the first three weeks, Avatar crossed the 1-billion dollar mark and beat out The Dark Knight , and will quite possibly beat Titanic, Cameron’s previous film. Undoubtedly, Cameron has become the wet dream of producers everywhere, able to consistently make shit tons of money from his movies. Granted, Avatar is the most expensive film ever made at over 6.2 billion (in pesos), but its made over twice of that already. Everyone is going insane over this movie, from claiming that it hates the gays to calling it the greatest film ever made (and some believe both).It received praise from audiences and critics alike. So really the question shouldn’t be “was this film good?” but “how good was this film?”…right?
Now here is where I sign my death warrant and destroy any credibility I may have established for myself in the past. I was underwhelmed. I politely ask that you put your torches and pitchforks down temporarily while I try to justify my idiotic statement. Let me begin by saying that this film is one that should be seen. This film has, without a doubt the greatest visual effects in cinema history, and the 3-D just adds another level of epicness, putting you right into the world of Pandora. James Cameron knows how to make action (after all, this is the 3rd time that he has made the most expensive movie ever made). However, there is a far longer list of things that Mr. Cameron does not know how to make. The first thing that comes to mind is story.
We open to space, the final frontier, where Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) has just arrived at Pandora, to continue a mission that his twin brother was involved in before he was killed. In a narration more irritating than Bella’s from Twilight, he tells audience (who isn’t paying attention because the space ship looks sooooooo cool) that he is continuing his brother’s mission because as he says “because he wanted something worth fighting for” but the movie tells us “because we paid him a lot of money and he is just a pawn marine with the intellect of a flea”. From there, we get introduced to the planet of Pandora, again showing the amazing achievements of current special effects, and we also get an introduction to the story’s main villain, Miles Quaritich (Stephen Lang), who, when not lifting weights, or shooting guns, spits pure testosterone onto his enemies and then beats them to death with his brass balls. Continuing on our tour, we come across Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), a scientist who studies the planet, Dr. Max Patel (Dileep Rao), a scientist who…sciences? And Finally we come to Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi), all the evil from corporations put into one man. He explains that the humans are on Pandora to gather a mineral called unobtainium, and the largest deposit is under the village of the Pandora natives called the Na’vi. So Jake is going to go on a mission to try and negotiate the na’vis’ relocation with their leader…wait, wait, wait. The humans are trying to obtain a mineral called unobtainium…ok, just had to ask again.
So this crack commando unit (without Mr. T) goes to the forest. Due to Jake’s idiocy, he gets separated from the team and is left to get killed by the cast of Ferngully. He eventually comes across a na’vi called Neytiri (Zoe Saldana). She takes him to the village and once again, due to Jake’s idiocy, he survives. Neytri’s father, the leader of the tribe, insists that Jake be taught the ways of the na’vi because he is a soldier, and dumb soldiers can be taught things, but smart scientists can’t (I’m paraphrasing, but yeah, that’s pretty much what he says). So then Jake Learns the ways of the na’vi and begins feeling bad about the whole, forcing them out of their home bit. (It was around this point that I realized that this was not Avatar: The Last Airbender).
My first complaint about this story is that it isn’t all that interesting. I walked into the theater pretty much knowing what would happen, and the story didn’t do I anything I didn’t expect. I knew what to expect, not only because it follows the routine movie formula, it is the plot of many other movies. In fact, let’s take a look.
1) Delgo: One group of people run out of resources on their planet and then invade another one. The natives are not too happy with this and then one man, stands against the group trying to prevent war on the people. He fails and war happens, but he is able to end the war with the help of the girl he falls in love with and they live happily ever after. Also they fly on dragon-like creatures that are essentially the same as banshees, live on a world with floating mountains and big-ass trees, and the natives look like off-color elves.
2) Pocahontas: Guy works for Big company, that is traveling to a foreign land so that they can mine for some mineral and get rich. Thing is, the natives seem to be standing in the way of their success. Guy meets natives and after spending time with them, he realizes that they are not savages, but people who just want to defend their homes. He also falls in love with the chieftain’s daughter and together, they solve the conflict.
Dances with Wolves: A man who used to fight for those who fought for power, comes across the natives of the land, and is kind enough that he is accepted into their tribe. He realizes that the natives are hurt by those he previously held allegiance to, and tries to help the natives. He also falls in love with the chieftain’s daughter and together, they solve the conflict.
4 Ferngully: A group of spiritual people who live in the forest are under attack from industry and big business that is destroying their land. One ignorant human stumbles into their colony, and eventually learns how what he has been doing has been destroying theses people’s lives. He also falls in love with the chieftain’s daughter and together, they resolve the conflict.
5 Braveheart: A group of people are attacked by a larger more powerful force, that feels that they are superior to the others. This group doesn’t surrender, and despite the fact that they are outnumbered, and don’t have the weapons that their enemies do, they fight against them because the enemy may take their lives, but they can never take their freedom. Also, the main character falls in love with the daughter of a king. (This movie apparently hates the gays too.)
6) The Last Samurai: Guy fights for people with technology on his side. He gets captured by another group who’s ways seem odd to him, but he learns to respect them and eventually sides with them to defeat the people he originally fought for. Oh, wait, no love interest.
7) Star Wars: Return of the Jedi: Big bad large powerful group wants to take over, but some humans understand that its wrong. They side with ill-equipped seemingly savage beings who inexplicably are able to overcome the technologically superior. Also the main character falls in love with the daughter of a queen and together, they resolve the conflict.
8) An Inconvenient Truth: Mankind’s greedy nature, and their need to increase industry and technology will lead to the destruction of the environment, unless someone, who has experienced mankind’s need to expand, puts a stop to it. Also the main character falls in love with the daughter of the queen and together, they resolve the conflict.
9 Terminator series: This shouldn’t count since its Cameron’s own work, but still. Greedy company obsessed with advancing technology and gaining recourses and such. Leads to war between man and machine.
Now Avatar has made over 1 billion dollars and has received critical praise. Delgo was one of the top financial disasters in cinema and its critical reception was on par with Batman and Robin. It seems like they have the same boring contrived story (except it works in Last Samurai and Star Wars). Could it be that the fact that this film just had better writing and better visual effects.
Oh the writing!...oh. the writing. Let me first say that James Cameron is an accomplished writer in the action and comedy genres. Hearing Arnold’s one-liners is more angelic than the voice of Neytiri- I mean Pocahontas. Regardless, Cameron’s writing is a bit stale in the dramatic movies. Some of the writing is just not believable, mostly the entire romantic subplot between Jake and Neytiri. And Jake’s narration becomes very irritating through the 3 hours. But the worst writing comes from Cameron’s strange perception of nature and spirituality. The na’vi’s ideas of the planet and their god, and their specials bonds, and their trees makes less than no sense. The spiritual side makes Jehovah witnesses sound like brilliant scholars. The nature side sounds like an en even more nonsensical version of Transcendentalism. Cameron at least takes the story seriously unlike many of the bigger-budget movies this year (Transformers 2, 2012), but the writing still lacks a lot of the energy in many action movies. In other words, watching Michelle Rodriguez fire on a ship and say “opps” doesn’t have half of the entertainment value of Arnold shooting a missile with a terrorist on it while saying “You’re Fired!” It doesn’t go for the catchphrase, but for epic lines instead (which is fair considering how this movie seems to take itself more seriously than “Precious”), but the issue is that the writers fail to capture the epicness. Some of the monologues sound as simple and irritating as the morals learned at the end of an episode of Hey Arnold (Not to disrespect Hey Arnold, but epic was not their strong point). The simple dialogue just detracts from the scene and makes it sound very normal rather than what someone might hear in the final battle for an entire planet in the future. Its like talking modern-day slang in a movie in medieval England.
(Immediately after typing this sentence, Ian realized that horrid memory of years ago when he viewed “The Black Knight”, a movie which committed the very sin Ian described. After a long struggle in court, Ian was found “not-guilty” of attempted murder of Martin Lawrence. He then returned to his home computer and wrote about the characters of the film “Avatar”)
No matter how immersed you be in the planet of Pandora, or how amazing the fight scenes look, you need to be compelled by the characters. If you don’t care about the rebels, then the Death Star fight in Star Wars seems pointless. My indifference towards the Ewoks makes Return of the Jedi my Least favorite of the Trilogy (coincidentally, Return was the one I compared to Avatar). The characters of Avatar are boring, some are ridiculous, and some have less appeal than Howard the Duck. Jake Sully is just some military man with the thought process of a Transformer 2 soldier. Neytiri is…kind? Or something? Quaritich is so overwhelmingly badass, there is a real scene in the film were he discusses why he keep the scar on his face while he lifts weights and then immediately after, steps into a death machine of awesome. It’s cool at first, but there is no real character, he is just evil for the sake of being evil and has no reason to passionately hate the na’vi since, as Jake says in those essential asides of his, all the military guys are just guns for hire. Grace and Norm (played by Joel Moore, star of such masterpieces as Grandma’s Boy and The Hottie & the Nottie) don’t do anything except for adding some exposition and telling the audience the nature of the planet. Apart from Jake, Neytiri, and Miles, none of the characters add anything useful to the story at all. The acting does not do much for its case. The motion-capture technology used definitely helps to show the actors performances, but the acting is as blank as a CGI face, so it is not a massive achievement.
This movie was also three hours. That was unnecessary. It’s a simple plot. Hell several movies have the same plot and finish the story in under half the time. Some scenes go on forever just to give the audience a cock-punch at the end. Like one scene involves a na’vi ritual where they all huddle up, pray to their blue, fury god, and do some odd song and dance. They do this so that something will happen to the thing they are all praying around. The scene finishes, the ritual didn’t work, and everyone moves on. Presumably, the director’s cut will have the audience stare at CGI grass grow for the first hour. You may be saying to yourself “Now Ian, surely you jest. Perhaps some scenes may be unreasonable, but to suggest that genius filmmaker James Cameron would make us stare at nature for an hour is simply preposterous”. Well person I envision wearing a monocle with a large moustache, you are going to be unpleasantly surprised by the first act. After some painful dialogue used to establish the story, Cameron gives us around 20 pointless minutes of Pandora nature. We spend almost a full 2-minutes of Jake fucking with some plants and helicopter lizards (for clarification, touching the plants makes them emit a cartoon sound effect and then shrink faster than Rick Moranis in a 90’s comedy. And the lizards are small creatures who have helicopter blades on their back, causing then to fly away faster than Rick Moranis’ popularity after the 90’s). and for chewing up more of your precious time, I present to you 100 bad subplots. Do to these sidequests Jake embarks on, it takes about 2 hours because stuff finally blows up. For example, Jake needs to learn about the na’vi culture. I guess that means the audience needs to learn about it too. This means that we need to spend five minutes listening to Neytiri talk about how the bond between a na’vi and a banshee is like…magic or something and the bond is something you can see in their eyes. Then we get another scene of Jake wrestling a banshee, then one of Jake flying a banshee. Jake does not use this banshee at all in the final battle.
By the time we reach the film’s climax, I was bored out of my mind. The final battle was good, but nothing that changed the way I look at movies. The final battle scenes from Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and the series finale of Hey Arnold were considerably more epic mostly because I cared about the characters in the scene. But as far as special effects go, yeah, these are the best in any film.
This film has unquestionably changed cinema, though I would argue that it has changed it in a way that will lead to unhappiness. Studios now know what is sure to get them money. Special effects, 3-D, and futuristic. Story you ask? I don’t know, kids today haven’t seen Citizen Cane, right? Use the story, make it actiony somehow and make sure we can make it 3-D.
God help us all.
The hype for this movie was entirety, and in all other ways, inconceivable. The after effects are even more astounding. People are having what is being called post-Avatar-depression. Essentially, some people, after seeing Avatar, become depressed not because the film was bad, but because their lives are boring, consisting of nothing but sitting at the computer or writing dumb movie reviews, and are nothing near as cool as the film Avatar. People are taking this shit seriously! It even is getting protested by the LGBT (lesbian gay bisexual and transgender people) because quote “there are no homosexual characters in the film”. This example seems to capture the batshit insanity that is going on around this film. No film has had this big an impact on the masses, and I really feel left out. I saw this film, and I just couldn’t fathom how people are idolatrizing and curiously sexually aroused by this film. I used to be the guy who would chastise that rebellious jackass who claimed that
-Why should I care about Jake Sully or any other character?
-What are some examples of good writing in the movie?
-Why should I be interested in the story?
-(follow-up) Why should I be interested if I’ve seen the story and know what happens?
-Where are my pants?
-What makes this worth remembering at all?
-What makes the action scenes any better than a run-of-the-mill lightsaber battle or city siege.
-Why should the movie have been 3 hours?
-Where is Rick Moranis today?
-(follow-up) Anyone have his number? He seems like a cool dude.
-What makes Pandora more imaginable than Naboo?
-How do you not get pissed off with names like Pandora, and unobtainium?
-Just name something cool besides the CGI.
Now the CGI is amazing, and it deserves credit for that. And the movie at least has dignity, giving us actual people (though uninteresting) rather than things like 2012, where we got John Cusack giving one-liners throughout the apocalypse. This film is not bad, just unoriginal, somewhat stupid, a moral that is violently shoved down your throat, boring, and long. That sounds bad, but most of what I say sounds unpleasant. In actuality, this movie is going to change movies for the worse, and is far from one of the best movies of the year. But I say see it anyway. Unless your life is boring. Or you are a particularly hateful gay person.
Final Rating: 5.5/10
P.S. I didn’t even touch upon the weird hair tentacles. I’m quite proud of myself.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
2012 (Spoilers)
2012. A day where people shall be crying in the streets, begging for their lives to be spared from this wrath that will engulf all life on Earth and shall toss aside the pitiful race of man and will stomp on our remains. On this day, none can hide or escape its evil. It is the end my friends. Embrace it.
In case you were wondering, I am not referring to December 21, 2012. I’m referring to November 13th, 2009, the opening day of the new Roland Emmerich film.
Now to be fair, this movie did not intend to be more than a disaster movie, and as far as disaster movies go, this passes with flying colors. As anything else that it tries to be…it fails, and ironically enough, it fails disastrously. It has special effects that are practically blinding, and sometimes are more ridiculous and over-the-top than Woody Harrelson’s acting, but in some cases, it works.
Our story begins in 2009, and the world is changing. Stuff happens. It isn’t important, trust me. 2010, Obama seems to have aged 50 years as the president is played by the corpse of Danny Glover. The head honchos of the world are told that they have a couple years left before we all die. We fast-forward to 2012, where our hero, played by John Cusack (I assume John Cusack was hired before they realized the character was supposed to be a hero) awakes from a nap…and everything goes downhill from there. John Cusack is a deadbeat father, and terrible writer (So is the character he plays). He goes to pick up his kids, played by Thing1 and Thing2, from their home where they live with their mother (Amanda Peet), and her boyfriend Gordon (Thomas McCarthy).
Sidenote: Now, let me tell you a few things about Gordon. He is the boyfriend to the love interest of the main character. He is stupid. He is selfish. He makes sarcastic remarks. He says things that sound dougebaggy, but actually is the cruel truth. He also is a doctor who specializes in breast implants. I won’t tell you if he lives, or dies, but if you guess that he lives, then you are wrong.
Cusack runs into a crazy guy (Woody Harrelson) who tells him that the world is going to end, and the rich people are buying seats on spaceships...sure ok. So John Cusack is trying to save his family while this Russian millionaire is trying to get to the ship with his kids, girlfriend, and pilot. Also there is a scientist Adrian (some dude) is at the White House preaching fire and brimstone (in a completely scientific manner) and Oliver Platt plays the heartless jackass, Carl Something, who is everything we hate about government mixed together and given a forked tongue (the dude even lets his mother die. Hell, even Darth Vader loved his mother.) Also the president’s daughter is like there or something.
So in case you haven’t noticed by the premise that seems to best Homer’s work in length, this over-complex story suffers from having about 43 more characters than needed. I didn’t care about any of the characters because they all get about 10 minutes of screen time a piece. And they can’t have a basic story either, they have to make things complex. Why? What is the point? If you want a movie with good visuals and action, interesting characters, a message that will change people’s ideas, and a complex and interesting story, you need to get some better writers. It is clear that the people trying to make this story know nothing but earth-shattering kabooms. And that’s not a bad thing, just stick to what you know. This leads me to another grievance I have about this crap. The writing…or lack thereof.
The writing was atrocious. There is an actual scene where two characters are in a grocery store talking about their relationship while an earth-splitting (literally) earthquake is coming right for them. Norman says “This whole thing is tearing us apart.” Queue the earthquake to come crashing in between them. It was at this point I realized that mankind has not learned from the mistakes of Batman and Robin. Woe to you, foul movie.
But the issues with the writing don’t nearly end there. Throughout the movie, we are given these pretentious monologues about how important our decisions are to making this earth a good place. In fact, many of these speeches have such unfathomable cheeriness during the end of days, you just want to slap the bastards and recite some excerpts from Lord of the Flies. And the biggest problem is that this goes on for hours while bigger action could be taking place. But instead we need to listen to a presidential address that sounds like it was written by a five-year-old, and endless speeches about humanity. Does any meaning resonate in those heartfelt speeches?...fuck no.
The characters are blander than a piece of neutral colored cardboard with a picture of a John Cusack cutout holding another piece of neutral colored cardboard. Upon reading the Wikipedia article for the movie, I realized that there was an entire family of characters that I had forgotten about (and they had their own subplot and everything). That’s pretty difficult to do. This movie also has a thorough misunderstanding of how people work. The movie tries to be a popcorn movie for the first 2 hours, making the characters animated, and at the same time, bland. For the last half hour, these people are the kindest, most optimistic idiots ever. Ardian is apparently the only world leader who believes that all people are equal, and gives an entire monologue on why its important to help people. Everyone applauds, save for Carl, who is seething in a tub of his own hatred and evilness while he plots more ways to keep the working man down and steal away all his monies. All of the characters are entirely motivated by one thing each, and they have one thing about them that is unusual. That makes them interesting right? The girl collect hats, The boy likes Gordon better. Gordon is a jackass. Carl is government. Adrian is Jesus. John Cusack is the guy people should be able to relate to (but can’t). You can find deeper character development in Rocket Power (Yes. I went there. Do something Tito.)
It also seems that no one can just die. These people have to top the final destination movies in their grand ridiculousness, and top Passion of the Christ in their meaning (that’s right. Every 2012 death screams “It’s the Jews’ fault”). Seriously, must every single character with a name be a goddamn sacrificial lamb?! How many times to the words “Go on, I’ll catch up with you” or “It’s ok. I’ll stay behind” or “My God, why have you forsaken me?” echoed in our annoyed ears? 2012 has a lot of characters in the movie and by the time they are two hours in, they begin running out of creative ways for people to sacrifice themselves for the good of others. 45 minutes in, the president decides to stay at the White House, to help the people who have been hurt by that mean little Armageddon. 2 hours 20 minutes in, a father falls to his death by pushing his fat oaf of a son to safety. And the worst part is, when it works in war movies, or horror films, what the hell is the point of staying behind in a disaster film. Are you going to hold off the planet for as long as you can? Are you going to shoot down tons of enemy nazi tidal waves, before you are overrun? It doesn’t work like that. Look let’s compare shall we? I will show you how much easier and more entertaining it could have been to kill off characters:
Characters death
Charlie: gets hit with a flying piece of Yellowstone Park, because he would prefer to watch a cool explosion and die, rather than miss it, and live. Final Words “Remember people, you heard it first from Charlie”
Mr. President: Survives an earthquake just so he can be cockslapped by a quadruple disaster. A giant battleship getting carried by a tidal wave to crash into the White House, during an earthquake/nuclear winter. Last words “Baby…I’m coming home.”
How they should have died
Charlie: He should have lived.
Daughter: Peeing her pants. The overwhelming irony probably would have caused me to do the same. Last Words: There is no God.
Gordon: He should have lived as well. Plot twist!
The President: In full body armor, wielding dual shotgun swords, fighting off the waves of Nazi tidal waves, while chewing on the souls of the foul beasts of nature.
Last Words: Fuck you, nature!
Sasha the pilot: lack of hope. He gave up back when he was in Russia, and kicked back with a bottle of vodka and embraced the destruction of the Motherland.
Last Words: Это ваш капитан, подписывая (In English: This is your captain, signing off)
See, I’ve spent 5 minutes and already I like my version better.
Now, is it just me, or do disasters have some sort of vendetta against society in Roland Emmerich films. Day after tomorrow, the coldness practically hunts down Dennis Quaid. In Independence Day…well those were aliens with an agenda, not nature, but still. Disaster follows these people wherever they go. “They live in California? I’ll sink all of Los Angeles”. “They are trying to take off in a plane. I’ll make the runway crumble under them”. “They are in Yellowstone Park? What’s volatile in Yellowstone-Oh ok, I’ll just blow up Yellowstone Park”. “They are still escaping?! Time to throw meteors, fecal matter, and Russians at them. No one can withstand an attack of that multitude!” (Now reread those past few sentences, bearing in mind that pissed off nature sounds like Skelator from He-Man.)
As for the disasters, some of it looks spectacular (the special effects, not the disaster themselves) and some…well how would you react if a 30-foot donut was rolling at you? It’s all well and good, it just is overwhelming sometimes, and after you go through the adrenaline rush, they toss some Ritalin our way for another hour or so.
Overall, this movie is a lot like Glenn Beck. It mistakes being pretentious for being profound, it thinks it knows what its talking about (but really makes no sense), mistakes being annoying for being interesting, and really does nothing more than explosions and destruction. Now had the movie just stuck to the last part mentioned, and maybe made the characters tolerable, I would have given this a good review. And I know that this movie had good intentions, with an interesting idea, and some good potential, but let’s remember, Hitler had good intentions. Sometimes Hollywood swings for the fence and strikes out, and sometimes we think we will have Daniel Day-Lewis, and we get John Cusack.
Final Rating 2.5/10
Friday, November 27, 2009
Where The Wild Things Are
Where the Wild Things Are: Everyone knows what it is; the quintessential children’s story; a creative imaginative story that left every children book author from Dr. Sues to Fredrick Nietzsche seething with envy. The story is simple; A child named Max is a tad bit of a jackass, so he gets sent to his room without any supper (A fate that made all of us quiver when we had our parents read that to us.) Max feels that he’d be better of in a land where the wild things are, so he conjures up some lovable monsters and they have themselves a party (Or rather, a rumpus). After some fun, Max comes to the same realization that MGMT came to in Time to Pretend, and Max goes back home where his real family is. That’s a nice little story, isn’t it.
Now let me tell you about a movie based on that pleasant book and foundation of our childhood. Imagine you have bi-polar disorder, a view on life similar to the latter of the two authors I mentioned previously, and read “Where the Wild things Are” while simultaneously reading Feud’s “Die Traumdeutung”. That night, your diagnosed with every disease ever (even the ones that could only be obtained by eating fecal matter of an ape native to Series-of-Unintelligible-Clicks, Africa) And every person you are related to suffers 3 heart attacks. You have nothing, so you decide to get out that Colt-45 that you haven’t used since back in the day, but right after you finish the suicide note to your friends and remaining relatives, hold the gun up, and are about to pull the trigger you say to yourself “wait, wait, wait. Fuck this shit. I’m gonna make a movie”. This would be an accurate description of how this film came into being.
The story we are given in the movie is very similar to the book, but with a completely different idea in mind. Max (Max Records) is feeling alone in his life. His sister is in her teenage years and doesn’t want to talk to him, his mother (Catherine Keener) is to busy dating Mark Rufflalo to play with him, and his teacher told him in class today that the sun will eventually burn out and everyone will die (presumably right after he told them that their dogs didn’t really go to a farm, Spongebob isn’t real, and their grandparents are playing soul shuffleboard in hell with Santa Claus and Mr. Rogers).* So Max, fed up with the cruelty that real life has shown him, decides that he will run away from home. He runs though the woods, takes a sailboat across the sea, and ends up in a new land where he finds a group of monsters/aspects of his own mind, which are the Wild Things. There is Carol (James Gandolfini)/Max’s doubt, rage and sadness; KW (Lauren Ambrose)/ creative, and adventurous; Ira (Forest Whitaker)/ Understanding, and caring; Judith (Catherine O’Hara)/ Hopelessness and jealousy, Douglas (Chris Cooper)/ Courage and reason, Alexander (Paul Dano)/ Loneliness and Awkwardness and Bull/ Shyness.
These emotions are not just confined to the characters. The movie has an excellent way of establishing these emotions in certain scenes. Every scene has a clear mood that it’s trying to present, and it works tremendously in most scenes. The scenes where everyone rejoices their first day of having a new king, and Carol and Max’s discussion on the devolving of the world and possible death of the sun how completely different tones and it works wonderfully.
The writing in this movie is simple but so well done. Since the monsters are all creations of Max, they all talk like Max, and they all learn from each other. Max’s self-journey shows him something about himself and the world that he lives in. Granted, what it shows him is that the world is cruel, people suck, and exposes him to the fullest of Hobbsian theory (Thank God he didn’t make a rule that only the one with the conch shell could speak).
There are some complaints I have. Some of the scenes become repetitive since, for the most part, the characters are static or suffer from Holden Caulfield syndrome*. As enjoyable as the characters are, they are held down by the fact that they each get 1/7 of Max’s personality and so many of the lines they say, or problems they face are the same thing. I eventually get quite angry with Carol since whenever there was something he would disagree with, he would storm away angrily and cause tensions to rise. There are times when the film seemed to drag on, and became repetitive in its conflicts (and there is never a lack of conflicts).
Now don’t get me wrong, I loved this film. It was just so amazingly depressing. I would recommend that parents take their kids to see it, but I don’t know if that’s a good idea since even today I can remember crying at the end of “Doug’s First Movie Ever” (But come on. They loved that sea creature so much. Why did it have to leave?)
But the real reason I would recommend it to kids is that its honest. The movie just sort of tells kids that “hey, this is life. Its shitty, people will push you down, you won’t get what you want, and God is dead” I guarantee you won’t get that harsh realism from Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. It also understands how kids think, and so it becomes so much more sincere when they have this real person doing what any kid would do. The interactions between Max and his mother, and Max and his sister and her friends are exactly what we do as kids (minus dressing in a wolf/bear/Sasquatch suit). And when Max is in the world of the Wild Things, we remember back to the days when we dreamed about that sort of thing; Where we left the constricts of reality and traveled to our mind’s utopia where…everyone suffers the same problems as those in reality. And this leads to why teens and adults should see it as well. It is an interesting character study of ourselves back in the day. This whole film is just watching the inner workings of this very strange child’s mind.
This movie was very well done, was far more then enjoyable, gives us an interesting look at the life and mind of a child, and although it was more depressing than Requiem For a Dream, it offers an important lesson conveyed through excellent writing, interesting characters, and a relatable yet original imagination.
Final Rating: 8.5/10
Children, wake up
Hold your mistake up
Before the summer turns to dust
And if the children
Don’t grow up
Our bodies get bigger
But our hearts get torn up
We’re just a million little gods causing rainstorms
Turning every good thing to rust
I guess we’ll just have to adjust
-Arcade Fire
* If for some reason, Mr. Rogers did go to hell, he would have destroyed it in a day and taken his place at the round table next to Jesus.
*Holden Caulfield syndrome- when it is in the charters nature to prevent a story from developing or moving in an interesting direction.
Now let me tell you about a movie based on that pleasant book and foundation of our childhood. Imagine you have bi-polar disorder, a view on life similar to the latter of the two authors I mentioned previously, and read “Where the Wild things Are” while simultaneously reading Feud’s “Die Traumdeutung”. That night, your diagnosed with every disease ever (even the ones that could only be obtained by eating fecal matter of an ape native to Series-of-Unintelligible-Clicks, Africa) And every person you are related to suffers 3 heart attacks. You have nothing, so you decide to get out that Colt-45 that you haven’t used since back in the day, but right after you finish the suicide note to your friends and remaining relatives, hold the gun up, and are about to pull the trigger you say to yourself “wait, wait, wait. Fuck this shit. I’m gonna make a movie”. This would be an accurate description of how this film came into being.
The story we are given in the movie is very similar to the book, but with a completely different idea in mind. Max (Max Records) is feeling alone in his life. His sister is in her teenage years and doesn’t want to talk to him, his mother (Catherine Keener) is to busy dating Mark Rufflalo to play with him, and his teacher told him in class today that the sun will eventually burn out and everyone will die (presumably right after he told them that their dogs didn’t really go to a farm, Spongebob isn’t real, and their grandparents are playing soul shuffleboard in hell with Santa Claus and Mr. Rogers).* So Max, fed up with the cruelty that real life has shown him, decides that he will run away from home. He runs though the woods, takes a sailboat across the sea, and ends up in a new land where he finds a group of monsters/aspects of his own mind, which are the Wild Things. There is Carol (James Gandolfini)/Max’s doubt, rage and sadness; KW (Lauren Ambrose)/ creative, and adventurous; Ira (Forest Whitaker)/ Understanding, and caring; Judith (Catherine O’Hara)/ Hopelessness and jealousy, Douglas (Chris Cooper)/ Courage and reason, Alexander (Paul Dano)/ Loneliness and Awkwardness and Bull/ Shyness.
These emotions are not just confined to the characters. The movie has an excellent way of establishing these emotions in certain scenes. Every scene has a clear mood that it’s trying to present, and it works tremendously in most scenes. The scenes where everyone rejoices their first day of having a new king, and Carol and Max’s discussion on the devolving of the world and possible death of the sun how completely different tones and it works wonderfully.
The writing in this movie is simple but so well done. Since the monsters are all creations of Max, they all talk like Max, and they all learn from each other. Max’s self-journey shows him something about himself and the world that he lives in. Granted, what it shows him is that the world is cruel, people suck, and exposes him to the fullest of Hobbsian theory (Thank God he didn’t make a rule that only the one with the conch shell could speak).
There are some complaints I have. Some of the scenes become repetitive since, for the most part, the characters are static or suffer from Holden Caulfield syndrome*. As enjoyable as the characters are, they are held down by the fact that they each get 1/7 of Max’s personality and so many of the lines they say, or problems they face are the same thing. I eventually get quite angry with Carol since whenever there was something he would disagree with, he would storm away angrily and cause tensions to rise. There are times when the film seemed to drag on, and became repetitive in its conflicts (and there is never a lack of conflicts).
Now don’t get me wrong, I loved this film. It was just so amazingly depressing. I would recommend that parents take their kids to see it, but I don’t know if that’s a good idea since even today I can remember crying at the end of “Doug’s First Movie Ever” (But come on. They loved that sea creature so much. Why did it have to leave?)
But the real reason I would recommend it to kids is that its honest. The movie just sort of tells kids that “hey, this is life. Its shitty, people will push you down, you won’t get what you want, and God is dead” I guarantee you won’t get that harsh realism from Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. It also understands how kids think, and so it becomes so much more sincere when they have this real person doing what any kid would do. The interactions between Max and his mother, and Max and his sister and her friends are exactly what we do as kids (minus dressing in a wolf/bear/Sasquatch suit). And when Max is in the world of the Wild Things, we remember back to the days when we dreamed about that sort of thing; Where we left the constricts of reality and traveled to our mind’s utopia where…everyone suffers the same problems as those in reality. And this leads to why teens and adults should see it as well. It is an interesting character study of ourselves back in the day. This whole film is just watching the inner workings of this very strange child’s mind.
This movie was very well done, was far more then enjoyable, gives us an interesting look at the life and mind of a child, and although it was more depressing than Requiem For a Dream, it offers an important lesson conveyed through excellent writing, interesting characters, and a relatable yet original imagination.
Final Rating: 8.5/10
Children, wake up
Hold your mistake up
Before the summer turns to dust
And if the children
Don’t grow up
Our bodies get bigger
But our hearts get torn up
We’re just a million little gods causing rainstorms
Turning every good thing to rust
I guess we’ll just have to adjust
-Arcade Fire
* If for some reason, Mr. Rogers did go to hell, he would have destroyed it in a day and taken his place at the round table next to Jesus.
*Holden Caulfield syndrome- when it is in the charters nature to prevent a story from developing or moving in an interesting direction.
I Can Do Bad All By Myself (Spoilers)
In the beginning, there was The Great Train Robbery. This was the first film created and was the beginning of something epic. Something that I want to be a part of. Something magnificent, creative, interesting, and unique. I talk of course about the film industry. Now as the years went on, people realized the potential for artistically expressing a story through the narrative of film. There was Citizen Cane, and Cassablanca. There were Alfred Hitchcocks and Stanley Kubricks and Martin Scorceses and Quentin Tarintinos. Then eventually there was an idea. Movies=Monies. Some credit this idea to the Terminators who went back in time and took over many corporations and replaced all people with heartless robots (Ironically enough, James Cameron has, in many ways, been responsible for the terminators because of Titanic, which remains the highest-grossing-film of all time.) Regardless, films began playing to audiences, which was good because they were entertaining people. Then they started to eliminate originality and just threw something that would put people in the seats. This is one thing that I really hate. Transformers 2 was the epitome of this idea.
Now for the twist. Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself isn’t like those movies in the least. (I know!) See, the first paragraph was just to give you an idea of what bad movies are for the most part. This movie is on the opposite side of the spectrum. Tyler Perry isn’t whoring himself out in the way I thought before I saw this movie. Sure, he is making easy jokes, and is a black director making black exploitation movies but its more than that. Tyler Perry tries hard to convey an inspiring story of change for the better and the good in people prevailing over greed and selfishness. That being said…It is, in many ways, worse than Transformers 2.
That’s right. Let those words sink in. Have they stained your soul yet? Just read that sentence over until your spirit is thoroughly broken. In terms of my standards for what films deserve to be, and how they should be treated, sure, Transformers 2 is a crime against humanity since it is unoriginal, stupid, pointless, violent, and did nothing other than try to make money. However, when a movie decides that it is going to be a unique and special story, on its own, with no help from Hollywood, I am very upset when it comes out looking like this movie. Its like a situation where there are two students. One student is idiotic, immature and could have written his report but instead just smoked weed, watched porn, and slept for 15 hours (and the worst part is that people like him). The other student is bright, and shows great effort in class and cares about his work but then wrote a paper just as bad as Stoner McJackoff. I feel less upset with the kid who is lazy and just doesn’t have the brain capacity to write a good paper, than with the student who could have written an excellent paper. ICDBABM is the latter of the two students. Don’t push the metaphor to far though. I am not saying Tyler Perry has the potential to make good movies. I’m saying that he wants to be unique and do things himself, and he tries very hard, but the movies he makes just suck.
It was unoriginal, not funny, dull, pointless and just frustrating. This movie is so stupid, so ridiculous, so immensely unsatisfying, I found myself thinking how? How could Tyler Perry have had 2 box office hits in one year that were essentially the same movie. Madea’s family Reunion made more money than Watchmen did! Have you lost faith in humanity yet?
I will do my best to remain calm and collected throughout this review, though no guarantees can be made. Here it is; one of the worst movies of the decade: I Can Do Bad All By Myself.
STORY
The movie opens on the famous Tyler Perry character, Madea. Madea is put in almost every Tyler Perry movie and she always will make people pay money to see the garbage, and all the movies she is not in is a box office flop (Did you see The Family That Preys? I didn’t think so). So Madea is in bed and wakes up to a sound in her kitchen. She finds that three children (played by 3 unpleasant actors) are trying to rob her. She sits them down and finds out that their mother is dead and their grandmother never came home, and they only have one other relative, a girl named April (Taraji P. Henson). April works at a club and in her spare time enjoys drinking, having sex with married men, drinking, sleeping, yelling at people, and drinking again (her and Stoner McJackoff would make a lovely couple). April reluctantly allows the kids to stay with her. Eventually a Man named Sandino ( played by Adam “Seriously-this-is-the-best-actor-Mexico-has-to-offer” Rodriguez) is sent by the church to help April around the house (the stench of an inevitable romance can be smelt from a mile away). From this point on, the movie just sorta tossed a bunch of events together and prayed that they made sense. April’s mother dies, the kids are upset, especially the girl who looks after her two younger brothers. Madea just sorta shows up every so often. The man April is seeing suddenly has very lustful thoughts for the girl (yes, that 16 year-old girl). April changes her ways, but then changes her mind about changing her ways, and re-changes her ways after that... Also the movie just decided to become a musical…trust me, you don’t even want me to talk about the writing in this “film”.
CHARACTERS
Taraji P. Henson as April: Henson is a talented actress in my opinion (though all of her work I’ve seen is this movie, Smokin Aces and her 5 minutes in Benjamin Button) though in this movie, the dialogue and 2-dimensional character of April makes it relatively difficult for her to give an amazing performance. Words like loathe, disdain, hatred, and anger don’t even begin to describe my feelings for this character (and I should point out that this is a compliment since I was surprised Tyler Perry made me have feelings of any kind for his characters). She changes without reason, she starts off as pure evil for no reason, and is impossible to feel sorry for her. This is one of the main problems with this movie. A main character that can’t be relatable, likable, or tolerable.
Adam Rodriguez as Sandino: Congratulations to this man for outdoing all other performances in blandness, worthlessness and leaving an impression the size of a shriveled pea (That is the strangest metaphor I have ever made…I don’t know why I wrote that. That was just…silly). This character is not likable for the opposite reason April is. Sandino is depicted as Jesus. Not Jesus-like, but just Jesus. He does not wrong, he doesn’t change, he is kind to everybody, and the only reason people listened to him was because of his six-pack abs. Rodriguez is a terrible actor, and I would ever go so far as to say that he is the male equivalent of a megan fox.
Tyler Perry as Joe and Madea: These creations of Mr. Perry are considered funny. These unoriginal, stereotypical, violent, unlikable people are considered funny. Do not want.
The three children: the girl- she’s pretty much the same as April except she cares about two people; her brothers. Apart from that, she’s kinda the same. She’s mean, selfish, and like most characters in the movie, has a moral compass that points in only one direction. Fat kid-he has one line of dialogue and it is the most laughable thing ever. Little kid- I have nothing against this kid. Hell, he just might be the best actor in this movie.
Brian White as Randy: No. Not “RAAAAANDY”. Randy. The man made out of concentrated evil. He isn’t an antagonist, he is Satin, and the movie makes that abundantly clear. Whenever he speaks, the most overly-ominous music plays in the background. Every word he says hints that he wishes to rape or kill something in the near future…also he becomes a pedophile 30 minutes in. Now this may sound ridiculous because...well, it is. I can’t really say much on the actor, because the character was so damn distracting. I guess he was good but I just can’t talk about him anymore.
TO MAKE THINGS CLEARER
Now, from what I’ve described so far has shown that the movie isn’t anything amazing, the characters are terrible, and the story makes the opposite of sense. It’s a very simple story with a happy ending and everything is ok in the end. Usual bullshit, nothing new is brought to the table, so therefore the movie should be around a 3. Not the worst thing, but not the best. But Tyler Perry’s decisions as a director drag this down even more. Forget the crapping characters, crappy writing, and crappy story. The actions in this movie are so…senseless I must further explain. I have compiled a list of 10 Moments that were so ridiculous, they made me laugh out loud in the theater and I was yelled at by others who were there to enjoy the movie. One lady got pissed off at my friend, who’s laughter was even worse, and she told him “he should shut the hell up and maybe he’ll learn something”. Now I am big on respect and I have to say that this person was completely justified in the first clause of her sentence. The second clause made her lose all credibility.(She also didn’t say please or asked us to be quiet). Regardless of the fact that these people liked the movie, and disliked us, I must show you the truth. So here are the top 10 whatthefuckmovie? Moments
Medea…why?: I should preface this by saying that Madea did have a funny moment in the movie. There is one part where she is trying to explain a Bible passage and screws up the story. That was mildly amusing. Now then, I hate this character. She is used as a stereotype to get laughs (which I think is one of the lowest of lows. Take some notes Michael Bay you cracker-ass hate monger)
She died!: Ok, this one has to do with acting, and this was the thing that got me some glares. The minister comes to April’s home and the audience can obviously guess at this point that the mother is dead. They walk in with a package, and sit April down. She asks where her mother is and the priest responds in the most over-dramatic voice “she died!” this alone made me laugh. I tried to gain control because I don’t want to disturb the people watching the movie. They the priest explains how her mother suffered a brain hemorrhage. The dialogue was so odd and uncomfortable and I was about ready to burst into tears of laughter. And then he pretty much says “oh by the way. This package we brought. They are her remains. She was cremated. Bye now.” This made me lol.
Ass zapping: This is one of the worst shot scenes. Ever. Let me paint a picture. Randy just tried to rape Jennifer. He claims she tried to pay him to have sex with her and she’s like “he tried to rape me”. April talks to Randy who is taking a bath. This dialogue happens
A: What happened?
R: I told you baby.
A: What happened Randy?
R: I told you what happened.
A: What did you do?
R: I didn’t do anything baby.
A: What happened?
R: I told you, she tried to offer me money to have sex with her.
A: What happened?
R: Baby? I told you.
She then leaves for a moment and comes back carrying a radio. Shit just got intense. Now I am actually interested in what will happen here. She Dangles the radio over the tub and demands that he tells the truth. She continues to shout at him and Sandino tries to talk her out of murder. She finally is overcome with anger and drops the radio. Randy tries to leap out of the tub, but one foot doesn’t get out in time and we then witness about 5 seconds of his ass jumping up, down, left, and right all over the screen, shattering any tension in the scene that was created.
Rousseau/Hobbs: This further explains the deplorable dialogue that is constantly dribbled out of the mouths of these scum and vermin (who discuss their heroine and child pornography). Every single conversation that takes place between Sandino and April, Sandino and Jennifer (little girl), and Jennifer and April can be boiled down to the single sentence arguments of the philosophers Rousseau and Hobbs. Every conversation is “man is generally good” “No. Bad is generally corrupt and evil and power driven” “love” “hate” “optimism” “realism”. This goes on for almost 2 hours. This explains why the characters are so dull. They just repeat one line over and over again. And when they change they just say “…yeah. Your right. Man is generally good”. The conversations are never brought anywhere. Now some people argue that the movie’s dialogue is realistic and should be praised for originality. 1) realistic dialogue is often insightful, or funny. 2) Tarintino and Kevin Smith write realistic dialogue. And they have likable characters to back it up. 3) Real people have a reason to say what they say, and they don’t just repeat themselves for 2 hours. 4) When people change, they do so for a reason. Like something amazing or terrible happens to them or they meet someone special or something. Anything!
Minister singing: I very rarely state that movies are “too long” in fact all the best movies are longer ones. Pulp fiction, Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood, The Dark Knight, Inglourious Basterds, and Braveheart are all at least 2 and a half hours. But this movie was looooooong. One of the contributing factors was that every scene that takes place in the church is just 10 minutes of the priest singing. What does this accomplish?: nothing. Does it change anything in the story: not really.
Continuity fail: Again, I very rarely complain about continuity errors in movies, but this was just stupidity to the highest degree. Scene: Woman wearing red dress in club on stage with band singing. Cuts briefly to April. Cut back. Scene: same girl, same song, but now blue dress, different background, different club, different audience, and a different freaking band! How does one get away with something like that. And its not like it was intentional either, because there was dialogue occurring before song, and then after its over, the woman gets off stage and continues her dialogue with the other character. This is just not fair!
Jesus to pedophile: Pedophilia is not a joking matter. It is also very difficult to handle in a movie. This movie can’t even handle a scene where a woman sings, do you think they can take on child rape? Randy is depicted as the greatest guy in the world, but then he sees Jenifer and within 5 seconds just devolves into Beelzebub. Why? Why the sudden interest? Tell me movie. Tell me! Explain! Then later in the movie, April, for nowhere, makes the accusation that Sandino must also be a child molester because he’s “so nice and good to children”. She actually says that he is so nice, he must rape children….just…I don’t get it.
Pedophile to jesus: About 5 minutes later, She apologizes to Sandino and thoroughly makes out with him. Then they get married and sing and dance and adopt the kids and they all live as a happy family for ever. Oh no, I hope I didn’t spoil the movie for you.
Musical minus fun: This movie is a musical. It has many musical numbers that make up about 40 minutes of the movie. However, these songs are all pointless, but are made to seem to have purpose as every time the song ends, a character is changed through…magic? Regardless, the songs suck, and a already touched upon the horrid church preaching songs.
Brain hemorrhage montage: This is hilarious and I feel like a terrible person for laughing at this. In one of the many musical numbers, the scene cuts to April’s mother (this is the only time she is in the film) and we watch her get on the bus. The camera focuses on her as we WATCH HER HAVE A BRAIN HEMORRHAGE AND DIE! This is supposed to be an emotional moment, but the way its shot is just hilarious. Death is not funny. Death to cinematic quality is even less funny. Knowing that you paid 10 dollars and 2 hours of your life to suffer through this: priceless laughter. There are some things money should not be spent on.
Too Much Optimism: now at this point, I’m entertaining the idea of suicide using nothing but a straw and an empty bag of M&M’s. But then the movie wraps up, and boy if they could make this story any fluffier. The movie teaches us that faith in Jesus (not Sandino. The real Jesus) heals all and makes things better (putting my views on religion aside, that’s just plain fucking stupid). It teaches us that everyone is good (putting my views on morality aside, that’s more optimistic than every Disney movie ending ever). And it teaches us that kindness will make the world a better place. (there is something I agree with. The only problem is that PEOPLE CAN’T JUST TURN INTO PEACEMAKERS OVER THE COURSE OF A HEMORRHAGE MONTAGE!
OVERALL
This movie is painfully bad, and might be the worst movie of the decade. Though I think Transformers 2 is a worse movie, I would rather watch it than this movie. Its brainless, odd, pointless, and overall is like the blood stain on my carpet. It’s a mess that you can never clean up because the guilt will remain with you, and nothing about it is funny, and nothing about it makes you understand what it means to be a good person (also someone died). This movie is bad. Some of the worst writing, worst acting, worst directing I’ve ever seen.
Mr. Perry I would like to challenge you in a battle to the pain. I’ll explain, and I’ll use small words so that you’ll be sure to understand you warthog-faced buffoon. To the pain means the first thing you lose will be your feet below the ankle, then your hands at the wrists, next your nose. The next thing you lose will be your left eye, followed by your right. But your ears you keep and I’ll tell you why. So that every shriek of every child at seeing your hideousness will be your to cherish. Every babe that weeps at your approach, every woman who cries out “dear god, what is that thing” will echo in your perfect ears. That is what “to the pain” means. It means I leave you in anguish. Wallowing in freakish misery forever.
Final rating:1/10
Now for the twist. Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself isn’t like those movies in the least. (I know!) See, the first paragraph was just to give you an idea of what bad movies are for the most part. This movie is on the opposite side of the spectrum. Tyler Perry isn’t whoring himself out in the way I thought before I saw this movie. Sure, he is making easy jokes, and is a black director making black exploitation movies but its more than that. Tyler Perry tries hard to convey an inspiring story of change for the better and the good in people prevailing over greed and selfishness. That being said…It is, in many ways, worse than Transformers 2.
That’s right. Let those words sink in. Have they stained your soul yet? Just read that sentence over until your spirit is thoroughly broken. In terms of my standards for what films deserve to be, and how they should be treated, sure, Transformers 2 is a crime against humanity since it is unoriginal, stupid, pointless, violent, and did nothing other than try to make money. However, when a movie decides that it is going to be a unique and special story, on its own, with no help from Hollywood, I am very upset when it comes out looking like this movie. Its like a situation where there are two students. One student is idiotic, immature and could have written his report but instead just smoked weed, watched porn, and slept for 15 hours (and the worst part is that people like him). The other student is bright, and shows great effort in class and cares about his work but then wrote a paper just as bad as Stoner McJackoff. I feel less upset with the kid who is lazy and just doesn’t have the brain capacity to write a good paper, than with the student who could have written an excellent paper. ICDBABM is the latter of the two students. Don’t push the metaphor to far though. I am not saying Tyler Perry has the potential to make good movies. I’m saying that he wants to be unique and do things himself, and he tries very hard, but the movies he makes just suck.
It was unoriginal, not funny, dull, pointless and just frustrating. This movie is so stupid, so ridiculous, so immensely unsatisfying, I found myself thinking how? How could Tyler Perry have had 2 box office hits in one year that were essentially the same movie. Madea’s family Reunion made more money than Watchmen did! Have you lost faith in humanity yet?
I will do my best to remain calm and collected throughout this review, though no guarantees can be made. Here it is; one of the worst movies of the decade: I Can Do Bad All By Myself.
STORY
The movie opens on the famous Tyler Perry character, Madea. Madea is put in almost every Tyler Perry movie and she always will make people pay money to see the garbage, and all the movies she is not in is a box office flop (Did you see The Family That Preys? I didn’t think so). So Madea is in bed and wakes up to a sound in her kitchen. She finds that three children (played by 3 unpleasant actors) are trying to rob her. She sits them down and finds out that their mother is dead and their grandmother never came home, and they only have one other relative, a girl named April (Taraji P. Henson). April works at a club and in her spare time enjoys drinking, having sex with married men, drinking, sleeping, yelling at people, and drinking again (her and Stoner McJackoff would make a lovely couple). April reluctantly allows the kids to stay with her. Eventually a Man named Sandino ( played by Adam “Seriously-this-is-the-bes
CHARACTERS
Taraji P. Henson as April: Henson is a talented actress in my opinion (though all of her work I’ve seen is this movie, Smokin Aces and her 5 minutes in Benjamin Button) though in this movie, the dialogue and 2-dimensional character of April makes it relatively difficult for her to give an amazing performance. Words like loathe, disdain, hatred, and anger don’t even begin to describe my feelings for this character (and I should point out that this is a compliment since I was surprised Tyler Perry made me have feelings of any kind for his characters). She changes without reason, she starts off as pure evil for no reason, and is impossible to feel sorry for her. This is one of the main problems with this movie. A main character that can’t be relatable, likable, or tolerable.
Adam Rodriguez as Sandino: Congratulations to this man for outdoing all other performances in blandness, worthlessness and leaving an impression the size of a shriveled pea (That is the strangest metaphor I have ever made…I don’t know why I wrote that. That was just…silly). This character is not likable for the opposite reason April is. Sandino is depicted as Jesus. Not Jesus-like, but just Jesus. He does not wrong, he doesn’t change, he is kind to everybody, and the only reason people listened to him was because of his six-pack abs. Rodriguez is a terrible actor, and I would ever go so far as to say that he is the male equivalent of a megan fox.
Tyler Perry as Joe and Madea: These creations of Mr. Perry are considered funny. These unoriginal, stereotypical, violent, unlikable people are considered funny. Do not want.
The three children: the girl- she’s pretty much the same as April except she cares about two people; her brothers. Apart from that, she’s kinda the same. She’s mean, selfish, and like most characters in the movie, has a moral compass that points in only one direction. Fat kid-he has one line of dialogue and it is the most laughable thing ever. Little kid- I have nothing against this kid. Hell, he just might be the best actor in this movie.
Brian White as Randy: No. Not “RAAAAANDY”. Randy. The man made out of concentrated evil. He isn’t an antagonist, he is Satin, and the movie makes that abundantly clear. Whenever he speaks, the most overly-ominous music plays in the background. Every word he says hints that he wishes to rape or kill something in the near future…also he becomes a pedophile 30 minutes in. Now this may sound ridiculous because...well, it is. I can’t really say much on the actor, because the character was so damn distracting. I guess he was good but I just can’t talk about him anymore.
TO MAKE THINGS CLEARER
Now, from what I’ve described so far has shown that the movie isn’t anything amazing, the characters are terrible, and the story makes the opposite of sense. It’s a very simple story with a happy ending and everything is ok in the end. Usual bullshit, nothing new is brought to the table, so therefore the movie should be around a 3. Not the worst thing, but not the best. But Tyler Perry’s decisions as a director drag this down even more. Forget the crapping characters, crappy writing, and crappy story. The actions in this movie are so…senseless I must further explain. I have compiled a list of 10 Moments that were so ridiculous, they made me laugh out loud in the theater and I was yelled at by others who were there to enjoy the movie. One lady got pissed off at my friend, who’s laughter was even worse, and she told him “he should shut the hell up and maybe he’ll learn something”. Now I am big on respect and I have to say that this person was completely justified in the first clause of her sentence. The second clause made her lose all credibility.(She also didn’t say please or asked us to be quiet). Regardless of the fact that these people liked the movie, and disliked us, I must show you the truth. So here are the top 10 whatthefuckmovie? Moments
Medea…why?: I should preface this by saying that Madea did have a funny moment in the movie. There is one part where she is trying to explain a Bible passage and screws up the story. That was mildly amusing. Now then, I hate this character. She is used as a stereotype to get laughs (which I think is one of the lowest of lows. Take some notes Michael Bay you cracker-ass hate monger)
She died!: Ok, this one has to do with acting, and this was the thing that got me some glares. The minister comes to April’s home and the audience can obviously guess at this point that the mother is dead. They walk in with a package, and sit April down. She asks where her mother is and the priest responds in the most over-dramatic voice “she died!” this alone made me laugh. I tried to gain control because I don’t want to disturb the people watching the movie. They the priest explains how her mother suffered a brain hemorrhage. The dialogue was so odd and uncomfortable and I was about ready to burst into tears of laughter. And then he pretty much says “oh by the way. This package we brought. They are her remains. She was cremated. Bye now.” This made me lol.
Ass zapping: This is one of the worst shot scenes. Ever. Let me paint a picture. Randy just tried to rape Jennifer. He claims she tried to pay him to have sex with her and she’s like “he tried to rape me”. April talks to Randy who is taking a bath. This dialogue happens
A: What happened?
R: I told you baby.
A: What happened Randy?
R: I told you what happened.
A: What did you do?
R: I didn’t do anything baby.
A: What happened?
R: I told you, she tried to offer me money to have sex with her.
A: What happened?
R: Baby? I told you.
She then leaves for a moment and comes back carrying a radio. Shit just got intense. Now I am actually interested in what will happen here. She Dangles the radio over the tub and demands that he tells the truth. She continues to shout at him and Sandino tries to talk her out of murder. She finally is overcome with anger and drops the radio. Randy tries to leap out of the tub, but one foot doesn’t get out in time and we then witness about 5 seconds of his ass jumping up, down, left, and right all over the screen, shattering any tension in the scene that was created.
Rousseau/Hobbs: This further explains the deplorable dialogue that is constantly dribbled out of the mouths of these scum and vermin (who discuss their heroine and child pornography). Every single conversation that takes place between Sandino and April, Sandino and Jennifer (little girl), and Jennifer and April can be boiled down to the single sentence arguments of the philosophers Rousseau and Hobbs. Every conversation is “man is generally good” “No. Bad is generally corrupt and evil and power driven” “love” “hate” “optimism” “realism”. This goes on for almost 2 hours. This explains why the characters are so dull. They just repeat one line over and over again. And when they change they just say “…yeah. Your right. Man is generally good”. The conversations are never brought anywhere. Now some people argue that the movie’s dialogue is realistic and should be praised for originality. 1) realistic dialogue is often insightful, or funny. 2) Tarintino and Kevin Smith write realistic dialogue. And they have likable characters to back it up. 3) Real people have a reason to say what they say, and they don’t just repeat themselves for 2 hours. 4) When people change, they do so for a reason. Like something amazing or terrible happens to them or they meet someone special or something. Anything!
Minister singing: I very rarely state that movies are “too long” in fact all the best movies are longer ones. Pulp fiction, Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood, The Dark Knight, Inglourious Basterds, and Braveheart are all at least 2 and a half hours. But this movie was looooooong. One of the contributing factors was that every scene that takes place in the church is just 10 minutes of the priest singing. What does this accomplish?: nothing. Does it change anything in the story: not really.
Continuity fail: Again, I very rarely complain about continuity errors in movies, but this was just stupidity to the highest degree. Scene: Woman wearing red dress in club on stage with band singing. Cuts briefly to April. Cut back. Scene: same girl, same song, but now blue dress, different background, different club, different audience, and a different freaking band! How does one get away with something like that. And its not like it was intentional either, because there was dialogue occurring before song, and then after its over, the woman gets off stage and continues her dialogue with the other character. This is just not fair!
Jesus to pedophile: Pedophilia is not a joking matter. It is also very difficult to handle in a movie. This movie can’t even handle a scene where a woman sings, do you think they can take on child rape? Randy is depicted as the greatest guy in the world, but then he sees Jenifer and within 5 seconds just devolves into Beelzebub. Why? Why the sudden interest? Tell me movie. Tell me! Explain! Then later in the movie, April, for nowhere, makes the accusation that Sandino must also be a child molester because he’s “so nice and good to children”. She actually says that he is so nice, he must rape children….just…I don’t get it.
Pedophile to jesus: About 5 minutes later, She apologizes to Sandino and thoroughly makes out with him. Then they get married and sing and dance and adopt the kids and they all live as a happy family for ever. Oh no, I hope I didn’t spoil the movie for you.
Musical minus fun: This movie is a musical. It has many musical numbers that make up about 40 minutes of the movie. However, these songs are all pointless, but are made to seem to have purpose as every time the song ends, a character is changed through…magic? Regardless, the songs suck, and a already touched upon the horrid church preaching songs.
Brain hemorrhage montage: This is hilarious and I feel like a terrible person for laughing at this. In one of the many musical numbers, the scene cuts to April’s mother (this is the only time she is in the film) and we watch her get on the bus. The camera focuses on her as we WATCH HER HAVE A BRAIN HEMORRHAGE AND DIE! This is supposed to be an emotional moment, but the way its shot is just hilarious. Death is not funny. Death to cinematic quality is even less funny. Knowing that you paid 10 dollars and 2 hours of your life to suffer through this: priceless laughter. There are some things money should not be spent on.
Too Much Optimism: now at this point, I’m entertaining the idea of suicide using nothing but a straw and an empty bag of M&M’s. But then the movie wraps up, and boy if they could make this story any fluffier. The movie teaches us that faith in Jesus (not Sandino. The real Jesus) heals all and makes things better (putting my views on religion aside, that’s just plain fucking stupid). It teaches us that everyone is good (putting my views on morality aside, that’s more optimistic than every Disney movie ending ever). And it teaches us that kindness will make the world a better place. (there is something I agree with. The only problem is that PEOPLE CAN’T JUST TURN INTO PEACEMAKERS OVER THE COURSE OF A HEMORRHAGE MONTAGE!
OVERALL
This movie is painfully bad, and might be the worst movie of the decade. Though I think Transformers 2 is a worse movie, I would rather watch it than this movie. Its brainless, odd, pointless, and overall is like the blood stain on my carpet. It’s a mess that you can never clean up because the guilt will remain with you, and nothing about it is funny, and nothing about it makes you understand what it means to be a good person (also someone died). This movie is bad. Some of the worst writing, worst acting, worst directing I’ve ever seen.
Mr. Perry I would like to challenge you in a battle to the pain. I’ll explain, and I’ll use small words so that you’ll be sure to understand you warthog-faced buffoon. To the pain means the first thing you lose will be your feet below the ankle, then your hands at the wrists, next your nose. The next thing you lose will be your left eye, followed by your right. But your ears you keep and I’ll tell you why. So that every shriek of every child at seeing your hideousness will be your to cherish. Every babe that weeps at your approach, every woman who cries out “dear god, what is that thing” will echo in your perfect ears. That is what “to the pain” means. It means I leave you in anguish. Wallowing in freakish misery forever.
Final rating:1/10
9
9. The new movie produced by Tim Burton and director of Wanted (name not important), is an animated film with a darker tone than most, taking place in a post apocalyptic world and jumping into the lives of the last surviving creatures; 9 ragdolls given the gift of life. So how does this movie fair as a Burton film? Or how does it stand in comparison to other animated movies or movies in general? The answer to all of these rhetorical questions; It was one of the biggest disappointments of the year.
I was very excited to see this movie, thinking that it couldn’t possibly be bad. It’s a movie about ragdolls in the apocalypse (Typical Burton). The animation looked fantastic, and Tim Burton, well..its fucking Tim Burton. But although the animation was excellent, it couldn’t save the movie from its numerous disastrous mistakes.
STORY
This movie focused a lot on the effects of the movie, and didn’t take into account the fact that story is often needed to make a movie. This entire film was based off a 9-minute short film and that’s all this movie really is; an extended short film that just uses cool visuals and terrible dialogue as filler space.
Now as I am writing this review, I’m keeping in mind that I don’t want to spoil the movie for you, but then I also realize that there is no story to spoil. So I will give the basic idea of the movie (if there is one) and try not to talk about any key events in the movie (because there are just so damn many).
So life has ended on earth. Mankind had been trying to kill each other since the beginning of time, now they finally had the tools to finish the job (I feel the need to put in at least one Watchmen quote in about every single review). But somehow, life continued as 9 ragdolls were given a soul by a scientist, who died transferring his soul into them (apparently he was confused on how Horcruxes worked). 9, waking up in an empty world, comes across another ragdoll, 2. 2 tells him that he is a friend and that they should get to a safe place. And Just as he says it, a creepy robot rat skeleton thing (typical Burton) attacks the two, and 9, in standard heroic fashion, hides in a can, while 2 gets dragged away. Oh sad face. I miss this character that we grew to love in the 3 bland lines of dialogue he had. 9 reaches the others; 1,5,6 and 8. 1 is a douchebag. 8 is a tool. 6 is a nutcase. And 5 is John C. Reilly. That about sums up their characters. After 5 more bland lines of dialogue, 9 and 5 go to save 2, and they find him in an abandoned factory, where they also find 7. But 9, in heroic fashion, activates a huge evil robot who has no other purpose than to consume souls, and kills 2. And 9,5, and 7, in heroic fashion, flee. They meet up with the twins, 3 and 4 and together, they try to figure out what must be done in order to survive…..or something.
This movie has some of the most horrendous dialogue I have ever heard. I haven't heard words as bad as this since Batman and Robin. It isn’t pointless dialogue, or dialogue that tries to be funny but isn’t (and thank god for that, since the last time Tim Burton went funny was Pee Wee’s Big Adventure….yeah). But this writing is so bland, overly simplistic, and just fucking stupid. These are actual quotes in the movie: “we need to find him” “no” “lets go” “do it” “I’ll do it” “ill go” “no” “we need to be safe” “they helped us. Now we should help them” “NO” “go” “find the source” “NOOOOOOOOO”. All thats missing is "Its the car. Chicks dig the car". This bad writing leads to the next problem. Bad story.
There is no plot here. There could have been, but there wasn’t. Its just ragdolls trying to survive. That’s it. Despite the fact that they are living in a post-apocalyptic world, the problems they encounter are really rather insignificant since they are just ragdolls. There is nothing compelling, nothing that is remotely interesting, and nothing meaningful in this movie. Shane Acker had many chances to make this movie have some sort of message, but he never does. It’s a sci-fi movie where mankind killed itself out of their greed for power. That’s far too easy. Talk about how mankind’s savage nature will inevitably lead to its destruction (watchmen quote 2), talk about how the advancement in technology makes man lose sight of what really matters in the world. Wall-E understood what happens when mankind screws with technology. That is a theme that is beaten to death, and it still didn’t occur to Mr. Acker, that his movie needed to make some sort of statement.
As many of you know, I'm kinda big on story. I love character development and good dialogue more than anything in movies (this is why I like Pulp Fiction, 25th Hour, Watchmen, and the show LOST and care slightly less for Transformers, and Year One). So because of the fact that this movie is lacking in both story and characters is well...quite sad.
CHARACTERS
9- Elijah Wood did a decent voice acting job though I think he was just hired because he is really good at shouting epic NO’s. Despite the acting, 9 is a very unlikable character who is the main cause of everything bad that happens in the movie.
8- Although people disagree with me, 8 was my favorite character. Sure he’s a dick to people, and he just follows orders from 1, but still, he’s badass. And he’s responsible for me favorite part of the movie: He gets high off of putting a magnet to his head. And the best part of his character is that he doesn’t speak.
7- Jennifer Connolly plays 7, a badass…woman? What’s this nonsense. A female defend the males from danger in the future? How absurd. Well, despite her fighting ability, she, like most of the characters, has no personality. She is the lover, girlfriend, wife, daughter, niece, mother, cousin, pet, slave, or something of 2. 2 dies. She cries. 5 minutes later she is ok….I know these ragdolls only have 1/9 of a soul apiece but that is just stupid, movie. This character sucks, and has no emotion. Moving on.
6- This is another typical character that we have seen in a plenty of other movies. That guy who at the beginning of the movie is insane, but at the end it turns out he was right all along. Not much to say here. There really is not development.
5- How did John C. Riley do this badly? I think he is a great actor (when he does dramatic movies.[No, Step Brothers does not count as a dramatic movie]). His voice acting was just very…fake. Although partial blame goes to the writers (and the lack of writing they did) Riley just doesn’t seem to add much. Sorry.
4- nothing. They can’t speak...yeah
3- nothing. They can’t speak… yeah
2- He dies like 5 minutes in. I got nothing.
1-This character is one of the more interesting ones (though that doesn’t say much). 1 is the oldest of the group and is considered their leader. He is not a man of action, but wants to keep everyone safe, even if that means someone getting killed off. But again, because of the writers hatred of storytelling and character development, 1 never changes or gets a chance to be explained. Like every other character, he ends up becoming very bland.
The Brain- ok, this is one of the better things in the movie. The brain is a terrifying machine created as an almost doomsday weapon by the humans. It is destructive, intelligent, and scary. A worthy antagonist, though it was still brought down a bit by the story. Oh well.
OVERALL
There is no story, the characters aren’t developed, they aren’t likable, and they don’t do anything except for fighting robots (and they don’t even do much of that since this movie was only 75 minutes long). This movie has the depth of a small puddle, and the intelligence of…a small puddle. It did nothing but provide a slight amount of amusement from the visuals, but that was only briefly entertaining, and despite the fact that it doesn’t last long, it gets boring very quickly; much like…a small puddle. This movie had such potential; such promise, but it squandered its gifts of decent effects and tossed aside the things that mattered like story and characters, and so 9 is nothing more than a small puddle in the world of cinema.
Final rating: 3/10
I was very excited to see this movie, thinking that it couldn’t possibly be bad. It’s a movie about ragdolls in the apocalypse (Typical Burton). The animation looked fantastic, and Tim Burton, well..its fucking Tim Burton. But although the animation was excellent, it couldn’t save the movie from its numerous disastrous mistakes.
STORY
This movie focused a lot on the effects of the movie, and didn’t take into account the fact that story is often needed to make a movie. This entire film was based off a 9-minute short film and that’s all this movie really is; an extended short film that just uses cool visuals and terrible dialogue as filler space.
Now as I am writing this review, I’m keeping in mind that I don’t want to spoil the movie for you, but then I also realize that there is no story to spoil. So I will give the basic idea of the movie (if there is one) and try not to talk about any key events in the movie (because there are just so damn many).
So life has ended on earth. Mankind had been trying to kill each other since the beginning of time, now they finally had the tools to finish the job (I feel the need to put in at least one Watchmen quote in about every single review). But somehow, life continued as 9 ragdolls were given a soul by a scientist, who died transferring his soul into them (apparently he was confused on how Horcruxes worked). 9, waking up in an empty world, comes across another ragdoll, 2. 2 tells him that he is a friend and that they should get to a safe place. And Just as he says it, a creepy robot rat skeleton thing (typical Burton) attacks the two, and 9, in standard heroic fashion, hides in a can, while 2 gets dragged away. Oh sad face. I miss this character that we grew to love in the 3 bland lines of dialogue he had. 9 reaches the others; 1,5,6 and 8. 1 is a douchebag. 8 is a tool. 6 is a nutcase. And 5 is John C. Reilly. That about sums up their characters. After 5 more bland lines of dialogue, 9 and 5 go to save 2, and they find him in an abandoned factory, where they also find 7. But 9, in heroic fashion, activates a huge evil robot who has no other purpose than to consume souls, and kills 2. And 9,5, and 7, in heroic fashion, flee. They meet up with the twins, 3 and 4 and together, they try to figure out what must be done in order to survive…..or something.
This movie has some of the most horrendous dialogue I have ever heard. I haven't heard words as bad as this since Batman and Robin. It isn’t pointless dialogue, or dialogue that tries to be funny but isn’t (and thank god for that, since the last time Tim Burton went funny was Pee Wee’s Big Adventure….yeah). But this writing is so bland, overly simplistic, and just fucking stupid. These are actual quotes in the movie: “we need to find him” “no” “lets go” “do it” “I’ll do it” “ill go” “no” “we need to be safe” “they helped us. Now we should help them” “NO” “go” “find the source” “NOOOOOOOOO”. All thats missing is "Its the car. Chicks dig the car". This bad writing leads to the next problem. Bad story.
There is no plot here. There could have been, but there wasn’t. Its just ragdolls trying to survive. That’s it. Despite the fact that they are living in a post-apocalyptic world, the problems they encounter are really rather insignificant since they are just ragdolls. There is nothing compelling, nothing that is remotely interesting, and nothing meaningful in this movie. Shane Acker had many chances to make this movie have some sort of message, but he never does. It’s a sci-fi movie where mankind killed itself out of their greed for power. That’s far too easy. Talk about how mankind’s savage nature will inevitably lead to its destruction (watchmen quote 2), talk about how the advancement in technology makes man lose sight of what really matters in the world. Wall-E understood what happens when mankind screws with technology. That is a theme that is beaten to death, and it still didn’t occur to Mr. Acker, that his movie needed to make some sort of statement.
As many of you know, I'm kinda big on story. I love character development and good dialogue more than anything in movies (this is why I like Pulp Fiction, 25th Hour, Watchmen, and the show LOST and care slightly less for Transformers, and Year One). So because of the fact that this movie is lacking in both story and characters is well...quite sad.
CHARACTERS
9- Elijah Wood did a decent voice acting job though I think he was just hired because he is really good at shouting epic NO’s. Despite the acting, 9 is a very unlikable character who is the main cause of everything bad that happens in the movie.
8- Although people disagree with me, 8 was my favorite character. Sure he’s a dick to people, and he just follows orders from 1, but still, he’s badass. And he’s responsible for me favorite part of the movie: He gets high off of putting a magnet to his head. And the best part of his character is that he doesn’t speak.
7- Jennifer Connolly plays 7, a badass…woman? What’s this nonsense. A female defend the males from danger in the future? How absurd. Well, despite her fighting ability, she, like most of the characters, has no personality. She is the lover, girlfriend, wife, daughter, niece, mother, cousin, pet, slave, or something of 2. 2 dies. She cries. 5 minutes later she is ok….I know these ragdolls only have 1/9 of a soul apiece but that is just stupid, movie. This character sucks, and has no emotion. Moving on.
6- This is another typical character that we have seen in a plenty of other movies. That guy who at the beginning of the movie is insane, but at the end it turns out he was right all along. Not much to say here. There really is not development.
5- How did John C. Riley do this badly? I think he is a great actor (when he does dramatic movies.[No, Step Brothers does not count as a dramatic movie]). His voice acting was just very…fake. Although partial blame goes to the writers (and the lack of writing they did) Riley just doesn’t seem to add much. Sorry.
4- nothing. They can’t speak...yeah
3- nothing. They can’t speak… yeah
2- He dies like 5 minutes in. I got nothing.
1-This character is one of the more interesting ones (though that doesn’t say much). 1 is the oldest of the group and is considered their leader. He is not a man of action, but wants to keep everyone safe, even if that means someone getting killed off. But again, because of the writers hatred of storytelling and character development, 1 never changes or gets a chance to be explained. Like every other character, he ends up becoming very bland.
The Brain- ok, this is one of the better things in the movie. The brain is a terrifying machine created as an almost doomsday weapon by the humans. It is destructive, intelligent, and scary. A worthy antagonist, though it was still brought down a bit by the story. Oh well.
OVERALL
There is no story, the characters aren’t developed, they aren’t likable, and they don’t do anything except for fighting robots (and they don’t even do much of that since this movie was only 75 minutes long). This movie has the depth of a small puddle, and the intelligence of…a small puddle. It did nothing but provide a slight amount of amusement from the visuals, but that was only briefly entertaining, and despite the fact that it doesn’t last long, it gets boring very quickly; much like…a small puddle. This movie had such potential; such promise, but it squandered its gifts of decent effects and tossed aside the things that mattered like story and characters, and so 9 is nothing more than a small puddle in the world of cinema.
Final rating: 3/10
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