I watched The Grey last night, and it left me thinking and dreaming all night long in the realm of nihilism. I cringed at writing an adequate review, as my understanding of the nihilistic worldview is hampered by my own Christian worldview. But I found this excellent review and decided to share it as a reblog. As far as a rating for the movie, I’ll give it three out of five stars.
Tag: movies
Movie Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
3.5 out of 5 stars
Perhaps I should have read the book first. Or at least read a plot synopsis. As much as I love hacker themes, I have a hard time swallowing and digesting violence, especially that perpetrated against women. That being said, I still feel a bit disappointed in Lisbeth’s response to her assailant. I thought she went too easy on him.
The ‘locked room mystery’ portion of the film held most of my interest, causing me to pause and rewind the BluRay several times, and play sections of it in slow motion. I love a great mystery and I adore female characters who don’t slow down for inferior intellects. Keep up, or shut up and get out of the way.
The ending convinced me to stick to non-contemporary literature for my fiction reading. What has that got to do with this movie? Well, as we all know, real life sucks. As far as I can tell, contemporary literature, especially crime novels, which this movie was based upon, exists to expose us to the absolute worst aspects of humanity and society, leaving us with little resolution and a scarcity of hope.
Give me a good fantasy film like The Prince Bride (the debut film for Robin Wright who also appeared in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) any day. At least then I won’t yell at my husband how much I hate men while watching it. (Yeah, I paid for that comment for hours after the movie ended).
Movie Review: Man on a Ledge (2012)
Man on a Ledge (2012)
3.5 out of 5 stars
A better than average thriller starring a couple of my favorite actors: Sam Worthington and Ed Harris (although the latter looked like he had recently been ill and lost some weight). I enjoyed seeing Anthony Mackie again, whom I loved in The Adjustment Bureau, but can’t say I liked his character in this movie.
I can’t disclose too much about the plot without spoiling most of it (which is true for most thrillers). Worthington is a police officer, who lost his appeal and faces twenty-five years in prison. He knows he’s innocent (but haven’t we heard that from just about any convict?) and he’s got nothing to lose. He escapes while attending his father’s funeral and then places himself on a ledge high above New York City streets, but not for the obvious reason.
You’ll be on the edge of your seat trying to keep up with the twists, turns and surprises.
Movie Review: Prometheus (2012)
Prometheus (2012)
2.5-3 out of 5 stars
Visually stunning, yet pathetically deficient in plot and character development. I’ve experienced better thrills from old school Hitchcock films. I found myself completely unconcerned if any of the characters survived, except perhaps Shaw. For the crew of a scientific expedition, I cringed at their crudeness and lack of anything resembling common sense or the scientific method. I also found it hard to swallow that we could achieve near FTL speeds in just eighty years (the time of launch the Prometheus being in the early 2090s).
The question I most want answered, dealt with the first scene in the movie. Here’s a brief description of that scene from the Wikipedia article referenced by the link above and the photo at right:
A humanoid alien stands above a waterfall as a hovering spacecraft departs. The alien drinks a dark liquid, then starts to disintegrate. As its bodily remains cascade into the waterfall, the alien’s DNA triggers a biogenetic reaction.
If we take the Prometheus analogy literally, then this alien created man on Earth in our distant past. This jives with the myth of the Titan Prometheus, who “is credited with the creation of man from clay and the theft of fire for human use, an act that enabled progress and civilization. He is known for his intelligence, and as a champion of mankind.”
But did he destroy himself voluntarily? Was he our champion, bringing not only fire, but life to our planet?
Or, as most of the movie implied, did he create us only because he could?
If this lone alien was a rebel among his kind, this would explain the behavior of the alien we meet towards the end of the film. His quest appeared to be the extermination of mankind, but his motivations remain unclear. Were we a failed experiment? an embarrassment? Or a possible threat in the eons to come?
Such rich clay to work with, yet the director muddied the plot with cliched ineffective unoriginal thrills, leaving the larger questions ineptly explored.
Mesmerizing cinematography fades quickly through the mind-sucking black holes in the plot. I should have waited for the DVD. Don’t repeat my mistake.
Movie Review: Battleship (2012)
Battleship (2012)
3.5 out of 4 stars
Terry and I caught this movie at the theater over Memorial Day weekend. Fitting, since it resurrected the USS Missouri from a mothballed battleship museum to our last stand against an imminent alien invasion. You’ve got to see it to believe it, and hang on for the ride.
The tie-in to the classic Hasbro board game came late in the movie, and was refreshingly subtle and well thought out.
Great early summer fun on a Sunday afternoon. Next week, Prometheus (and I saw an even more enticing trailer for that Ridley Scot film yesterday as well).
Movie Review: Destination Moon (1950)
Destination Moon (1950)
3 out of 5 stars
Hmmm … quite the blast from the past. I watched Destination Moon via Netflix DVD while visiting my daughter last weekend. I placed this movie in my queue based on a recent post (one of his last) by John Scalzi over at his FilmCritic.com blog, wherein he mentioned nine science fiction films often overlooked or underappreciated.
Even with the help of legendary science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein (both on the script and as a technical adviser), Destination Moon just doesn’t hold up well when viewed through the lens of the space age. Yes, they got some things right and tried to demonstrate weightlessness, pricinciples of inertia and some of the obstacles needed to overcome and survive space travel. For a hard scifi flick from the mid-20th century, I give the film an A for effort.
I did not care for the ending though. If you’re going to go to all the trouble to get to the moon, and almost not make it back due to poor planning (i.e. too much weight to return with the fuel alotted, no slack planned for when they had trouble landing and used extra fuel). The only real drama from the entire movie boiled down to who might have to stay behind and die on the moon. The characters finally achieve their weight goal with just seconds to spare and successfully take off from the moon.
And that’s it. The movie ends there. We have no idea if they made it back to Earth or if they splashed down safely in the ocean (another idea they got ‘right’ as proven later by NASA and the Gemini, Mercury and Apollo programs).
I found it interesting to compare and contrast with science facts from 1950 and what I now know in 2012, I don’t know that I’d consider this a ‘must see’ science fiction film. Maybe at the time (in the early 50s), but not now.
Movie Review: The Avengers (2012)
The Avengers (2012)
4 out of 5 stars
Fun. Early summer blockbuster. Popcorn for the brain. Terry and I loved every minute of it.
Gives a new meaning to ‘can’t we all just get along?’
I was disappointed for Thor. He makes a trip back to save the Earth (again) and still didn’t get to spend anytime with his girlfriend.
Movie Review: War Horse (2011)
War Horse (2011)
4 out of 5 stars
I found this film difficult to watch. Spielberg is a master at tugging my heart to places it fears to tread. And this horse went to places of heart-stopping beauty and through circumstances of heart-rending destruction.
Two aspects of this film, excluding the beautiful equines, that hit a home run (for me at least) were the cinematography and the music. I expect that from the likes of John Williams for the latter. I will pay attention to cinematographer film credits in the future to be sure I watch anything by Janusz Kamiński. He worked previously with Spielberg on Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List. Of course, it’s hard to go wrong with landscapes found in Dartmoor, Devon. And a nice ‘book end’ touch to the film included almost identical scenes, one of dawn over Dartmoor (and the birth of Joey) and the other at dusk.
I knew the plight of men who went to battle during the Great War. I am blessed to live within thirty miles of the National World War I Museum housed under the Liberty Memorial. I highly recommend you visit the museum if you ever find yourself in Kansas City, Missouri with a day or so to spare.
I did not realize the extent of equine casualties during WWI. According to the Wikipedia article on War Horse, the section relating to the research done by the author of the children’s novel of the same name:
Morpurgo researched the subject further and learned that a million horses died on the British side; he extrapolated an overall figure of 10 million horse deaths on all sides. Of the million horses that were sent abroad from the UK, only 62,000 returned, the rest dying in the war or slaughtered in France for meat. The Great War had a massive and indelible impact on the male population of the UK: 886,000 men died, one in eight of those who went to war, and 2% of the entire country’s population.
Similar to Black Beauty in time period and focus, the true star of this film was Joey, the English thoroughbred. “During filming, fourteen different horses were used as the main horse character Joey, eight of them portraying him as an adult animal, four as a colt and two as foals; four horses played the other main equine character, Topthorn. Up to 280 horses were used in a single scene. … Working with horses on this scale was a new experience for Spielberg, who commented: ‘The horses were an extraordinary experience for me, because several members of my family ride. I was really amazed at how expressive horses are and how much they can show what they’re feeling.'” (War Horse Wikipedia article).
And the most surprising tidbit I picked up from that article: “According to Spielberg, the only digital effects in the film are three shots lasting three seconds, which were undertaken to ensure the safety of the horse involved: ‘That’s the thing I’m most proud of. Everything you see on screen really happened.’ … Representatives of the American Humane Society were on set at all times to ensure the health and safety of all animals involved, and the Society awarded the film an ‘outstanding’ rating for the care that was taken of all the animals during the production. An animatronic horse was used for some parts of the scenes where Joey is trapped in barbed wire; the wire was rubber prop wire.”
Like Schindler’s List and The Passion of the Christ, I’m glad I watched this film, but I’m not sure I could watch any of them a second time. No, it doesn’t rise to the human tragedy and triumph of the two I mentioned, but War Horse reverberates on a similar harmonic.
Movie Review: In Time (2011)
In Time (2011)
3.5 out of 5 stars
I’m not the first one to mention this in a review of In Time, and probably won’t be the last. The comparison to Logan’s Run is inevitable, but I see it also as a retelling of Robin Hood, at least the second half of it. Dystopian science-fiction is all the rage, especially now that The Hunger Games have made it to the big screen. But what the Hunger Games lack in depth (but make up for in violence), In Time brings a thought-provoking story and a message about just how much you can accomplish with only one day left to live.
Movie Review: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
3 out of 5 stars
I really should have read the book by John le Carré first and I have no excuse for not doing so. I own a paperback edition of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and know exactly where it resides in my library. I had hoped that by not reading the novel, I would be enjoy the film and be ‘surprised’ as it unfolded. For the most part, I felt confused by the plot and unconvinced by the players. I did not expect to make a connection with any of the characters. Spies rarely come across as very likeable or sympathetic, not if they are doing their jobs well. Only the character of Ricki Tarr came close, but I suspect that was the intention of the author and director.
Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy is a slow paced spy film for such a fast paced generation. I enjoyed the period cars, costumes and locations. The state-of-the-art spy tech of the period contrasts nicely with our current high-tech mobile instant gratification society, where privacy has shrunk to near nonexistence for most average citizens – the price we pay for convenience? But I’ll leave that to another post and another day.