ftorresgamez Reviews

Teen Titans Go! (2013– )

Some 'enthusiasts' of the earlier show miss the point entirely

[9/10 · 29 December 2015]

Let's get one thing straight from the beginning: Teen Titans GO! is not a reboot of the older and more mature TV show of the early 2000's. Instead, TTG is a very entertaining mixture of usual superhero romp (with the gratuitous violence) and self-deprecating humor, with characters that represent several human foibles, especially when it comes to how Robin is portrayed: as the power-mad leader of the Titans who is capricious, eccentric, jealous, paranoid and spoiled rotten. Most of the humor is the type of pie-in-the-face you find in cartoons like Spongebob, but there are also plenty of jokes for us adults, especially for those of us who grew up in the 80s. I also perceive a libertarian streak in some of the writing; for instance the episode "Nose Mouth" clearly shows the dangers of abusing a great power (Raven's black magic) to fix apparent minor personality flaws in some of the team members, with things getting out of hand the moment Raven started to see problems to 'fix' around her which turns her into an evil entity quite rapidly. That has to be one of the best analogies about government abuse of power I have seen on a TV show.

Now I haven't seen the original show except in passing. I did read some of the comments from what I gather are very serious fans of the original talking trash about Teen Titans GO! These fans are taking things a little too seriously. Teen Titans GO! is obviously a comedy show which lampoons the original TT in particular and superheroes in general. In my view, if there was a bunch of superheroes that screamed for lampooning, it was the Teen Titans; the original characters themselves are quite ridiculous, especially the non-human Starfire and Raven which were invented back in the 80s as sensual überfrauen. In fact I think the new characters are much more attractive and endearing that the original characters precisely because of how each lampoons the older and ostensibly more serious characters. There is an obvious sexual innuendo in the way the original characters in Teen Titans were drawn and portrayed, and in Teen Titans GO! they simply make it obvious in order to make fun of this sensuality (for instance, watch episode "Legs" and "Mr. Butt".)

I do recommend the show and recommend you buy the DVDs. The comedy is very entertaining and funny - not always, but most of the time. The inside jokes are hilarious. The writers have much more creative freedom, thus the jokes and situations tend to push the envelope at many times.

Coco Before Chanel (2009)

He's not that into you . . . and neither was I

[5/10 · 11 July 2010]

You know you're watching an European movie when the director is trying to make a point in the most convoluted way. While I was watching Coco avec Chanel, I had the impression the director was trying to tell me "This woman broke into a man's world and succeeded! See? She suffers! Now, she enters their world! See? See?" What director Anne Fontaine tries to say and what she actually puts in the screen are, unfortunately, totally different things. I get to see that Gabrielle ("Coco"), who was left in an orphanage in her childhood by a father who was poor as dirt, along with her sister, later become lounge singers; and then Coco was able to break into a rich man's world by simple whoring. I only received hints and instances of Coco's design genius in between the parts where she arrives uninvited to her eventual lover's house, as drab a person as a chambermaid, makes love to him, and then to Arthur 'Boy' Chapel, and so on. She was (apparently) so much the mold breaker for feminists all over that she started her business by being bankrolled by her lover, who by the way, decided to marry an Englishwoman for money. Well, nobody said this was a moral story, only a feminist one.

But besides all of this, the movie is unremarkable and boring. It paces itself in such a way you can go to the kitchen to fix yourself a Dagwood sandwich and still not miss anything. As a chick flick it does not have the attractiveness of a straight love story, since one does not see exactly what Boy or Balsan sees in this wretch.

5 stars for me.

The Last Winter (2006)

The Happening, except in the Arctic

[3/10 · 28 September 2009]

Utterly pointless thriller about a group of oil explorers working in the Arctic (Alaska), looking for new drill sites, when an unknown force is released and starts affecting the minds of each.

Ron Perlman gives a good performance as Ed Pollack, the unit's leader and supervisor. He is trying to obtain favorable environmental reports that will allow the oil company to place several wells and a pipe line. Unfortunately, several incidents puts the schedule in jeopardy.

This movie feels more like The Happening, except with a Global Warming backdrop. Instead of trees making people kill themselves, here it was the ghosts of animals past - pretty preposterous. It was clear the movie has the intention of scaring people into believing "we must do something about Global Warming", maybe to have the Cap and Tax bill passed in Congress. While the situations were genuinely creepy, the movie was spoiled by the obnoxiousness of the underlying political message. The situations were rendered risible by by the whole artificiality and the shoehorning of the message into the story. If only the director had refrained himself from letting us know what he REALLY felt about Global Warning, the movie could have had a chance, although it would not have added anything new to the genre of isolation thrillers.

I do NOT recommend this movie for the story. Maybe for the acting and the creepiness of the situations, but there is little to absorb, like gnawing at a T-Bone with almost no meat.

Children of the Corn (2009 TV Movie)

Much better than the 1984 Movie

[8/10 · 27 September 2009]

This SyFy remake at least tries to keep itself faithful to the original short story by Stephen King.

The movie begins with a group of children gathered inside a tent, where a young boy dressed in a kiddie cowboy suit gives a creepy lecture to the rest of the congregation, while a pig is being sacrificed. This supposedly happens in 1963 in the Nebraskan town of Gatlin. Supposedly, all the adults were killed or had died.

Jump 12 years later, and a married couple traveling on one of the back roads of Nebraska are arguing inside their car, corn stalks being the only backdrop. Suddenly, a teenage boy comes out of the corn fields, holding his bleeding throat, into the path of the couple's vehicle. The man swerves and brakes, but to no avail - the boy is ran over. The couple exit the car, with the woman recriminating her husband, blathering about how he would go to jail. Then the man looks at the victim and sees the slit throat, concluding the boy was actually murdered, even if he still staggered towards the path of his car. He places the body in a blanket and into the trunk, while ordering his scared wife to stay in the car, while he goes to explore the path he child took. He retrieves a suitcase from the corn fields, while someone watches his activity. . .

The man insist on going forward to Gatlin, to inform the authorities, since even thought the child was clearly murdered, he still felt responsible, this despite his wife's objections. When after a few miles they find what looks like a gas station, the man stops the car, exits it and tries to find a phone, with no luck. The gas station looks abandoned, making the wife even more nervous. Afterward, the couple continue driving towards the town, where they soon find the place is as derelict as the gas station they just left, with deserted buildings and streets. The man insists on finding a police station to report the incident, but the wife does not want to hear of it, pointing out to the obvious facts. Her husband's sense of responsibility, however, overcomes his common sense and insists. The rest, you will have to watch, unless yo have read the story. . .

The story continues pretty much following the original short story. The acting is generally all right. The wife is played by Kandyse McClure, of Battlestar Galactica, playing the voice of reason within the couple, even if she comes up as a shrew. The child playing the preacher is not as creepy as the actor that played the same role in the 1984 movie, but I do not subscribe to the notion that is is necessarily a liability - the children may not look like psychopathic killers, but that was the whole point: the kids are not deranged (you will have to see the movie to find out why.) Bottom line, while not as scary as, for instance, The Myst, the movie still holds its own compared with the original 1984 theatrical release, which while enjoying a much bigger budget and special effects, the story itself ends up being increasingly preposterous and lame.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)

Not your father's The Day the Earth Stood Still

[3/10 · 16 December 2008]

Day The Earth Snored Still... OK, basically, an alien and a super robot come to Earth and tell humans to either accept the kooky green agenda or die. That's it. That's the plot. No more. Nada.

Of course you have snazzy CGI effects and the usual gang of walking clichés, but besides this, the movie either bores you to death or makes the Libertarian worth his (or her) salt angry at the implications that the Earth will be saved if we only . . . I cannot give away more, but you get the picture. The script was probably approved by Gore before it was given the OK to film. Disappointing, ridiculous, a waste of time.

Rent the original - the anti-war message comes home better than the greenie, kooky, envirowacko message.

WALL·E (2008)

Great Achievement in Animation... so-so SciFi with pig-headed 'green' message.

[5/10 · 3 August 2008]

I went to see Wall-E with my wife and 3 year old; I wanted to see it badly after watching the trailers in IMDb and on TV. I was amazed at the technological and artistic level that Pixar has brought with this movie, by making a world that is very difficult to picture - one of grit, dust, rust, chipped paint, dereliction... this requires a level of detail that previous movies did not show, because of the programming and memory requirements. So, the visuals themselves makes the experience of watching worthwhile.

The plot, simple enough (boy meets girl) is nevertheless well told in a very poignant manner. You just gotta love Wall-E and his advances on EVA, trying to woo "her". The robots are in themselves works of art.

However, the cluelessness of Hollywood had to spoil the movie for me, with an extremely childish "green" message, showing a lack of understanding of economics that dumbfounded me, and many plot holes you can drive an aircraft carrier through. It was clear that the writer took no care when writing the script, leaving in many instances of irrationality and nonsense.

*Warning: Possible Spoilers* For example, Wall-E was able to repair himself using other robots' parts. Why didn't the other robots do the same? What was EVA's purpose? If the executive order given to the Autopilot was NOT to go back to Earth, then why did it bother to send a probe?

(It is clear it had to be the first probe back, since Wall-E became surprised the ship it carried it landed in Earth) How come the captain became curious about Earth 700 *years* after they left it? Do Pixar people really think humans prefer to live inside a space-faring shopping mall? If the ship had the technology to keep the inside of it clean, how was it that the builders had NO success cleaning the trash? It is clear the writer or writers have no knowledge of economics. People PAY to have their trash removed. If places to place the trash became scarce, then the price to remove it would have to go up, making people change their habits. This means that the scenario pictured in Wall-E could never happen. The silly environmental message the writers wanted to convey stems from a wrong premise. This failing and the others exposed above, for me, make the movie a good example of bad sci-fi. If judged for its science fiction, this movie would not be any better than Battleground Earth.

So, I give it 10 stars for its well told love story, superb artistic achievement... less 5 stars for badly done, badly written, not well thought environmental message.

Marie Antoinette (2006)

Why the rock music?

[1/10 · 14 April 2007]

The acting is fine, and it is spectacular to see, but the pace makes short work of even the most patient bhuddist monk. And why the modern rock music? It was an awful mess, not coming close to dovetailing with each situation. The music was more distracting than helpful, or even interesting. My wife and I actually pressed the "mute" button each time another awful rock song came, so we could at least enjoy the scenery.

There are also some problems with the editing.

Next time, Sofia, use proper music, or better: do not use it at all. You do NOT know how to choose music, that much you have proved.

Not even a good rental.

The Last Kiss (2006)

Disjointed and Pointless

[4/10 · 8 January 2007]

I just rented The Last Kiss (actually, my wife did). The problem is that the movie never decides to tell me what it is about - is it about a life crisis? It is about commitment, or lack of? Is it about last flings? In none of those possibilities does the film dwell enough to make me care. The main character's friends are of little help plot wise - they either do not give him advise, or support, or tips, or a kick in the arse... anything that may give them relevance. Looking at their antics was like seeing totally different movies. It was rather a waste of time even taking time to know these characters.

I was kept wondering just what did the young girl that created the schism between the main character and his girlfriend ever saw on this guy - I may not be a girl, but even I can spot a geek when I see one. It was not like he had the best conversation on the planet, if good looks were not the issue, so what was it? I told my wife that maybe the girl lost a bet, or that she was dared by her girlfriends.

I was drawn because of the generally good reviews for this film, but I must confess that I think those reviewers gave such reviews because they felt some comfort for their own idiotic decisions - like not taking responsibility for anything, having no interest in making a commitment, and other post-modernistic nightmares. I did not find one, not one single idea, situation or decision that redeemed any of the characters, making the movie an exercise in aggravation.

Flyboys (2006)

You wanted to see an anti-war movie??

[8/10 · 24 September 2006]

I went to see "Flyboys" without expecting any deepness or profound ethical ruminations - only sanctimonious jerks would. If you wanted to see an anti-war movie, go rent the original "All Quiet on the Western Front". This is a popcorn-and-a-soda pop movie, to be watched if you want to have some fun. These movies were made before and they will be made in the future, so why so many take the opportunity to write condemnations, here, about the movie's Ra-Ra attitude? Sure, there are anachronisms - the Dr.1 was fully introduced in 1918 and was a devil of an airplane to fly, which is why only the most experience pilots would receive it. I would have preferred to see the star of the Western Front on the German side, the Albatross D.III and D.V, which were equipping most Hastas on 1917. However, I understood why the producers wanted to use the famous three-winger.

If you want another quibble, the engines on the Nieuports did not rotate as the originals. In fact, they were not even true radials, but over imposed stamped plates to (maybe) cover Rotax or Lycoming aeroengines. However, the flight scenes were terrific, and the fighting WAS exiting to see. It was also reasonably realistic - some people did not believe WWI airplanes fired tracer bullets, but they did. The movie did not shy away from showing the horrors of combat, either. This is no "Pearl Harbor", guys! This is no "pro Iraq War" propaganda, if some of you implied this.

Anyway, I was hoping a movie about flying in WWI would appear that took advantage of the newest CGI and I was not disappointed... not much, anyway. Now, I am waiting for Der Roten Baron, which promises to be even better (yay!) Please, spare me your comments about "how low has sunken the intellect of people in this country" blah, blah, blah... Sometimes people go to the movies to have some F-U-N, you puritan jerks!

A Name for Evil (1973)

A name for boredom

[1/10 · 11 February 2006]

This is one of those moments when you try to warn people about losing, perhaps, a good deal of their lives to this slopfest. I watched this "movie" last night in AMC, having nothing better to do. Alas, doing nothing would have been actually better, but I was NOT warned.

A Name For Evil starts promising enough, about a bores-out-of-his-skull architect (or something like that) that inherits this wreck of a house, supposedly built during the civil war era. This is supposed to be a haunted house movie, but it suddenly degenerates into somebody's acid trip, when Robert Culp goes out for a walk and jumps into this white horse, goes to a hippie party, gets a blonde chick laid, goes back home, confronts his wife (who believes the guy never left), goes OUT again but this time in his car, goes back to pick up the blond chick, frolic in a pond... then the guy gets back home and kills the wife in a pseudosurrealistic scene, and in comes the credits... uh, forget about the shadows the guy saw at his home, or the tunnel in the basement from where air with enough pneumatic pressure knocks his lantern off his hand...

I know some movie makers in the early 70s experimented a lot, but horror movies are pretty much straightforward affairs, so why in the world did the producers of this stinker see the need to change a well known and tried formula? I mean, gosh, the seventies WAS the decade of The Exorcist and The Omen... I do not know, but I guess the producers needed a good platform for the folksy singer that plays the guitar, accompanied by a full orchestra that happens to be invisible... well, lets say I do not think Mr. Culp remembers this stinker with much nostalgia.

Earthsea (2004–2005)

Woefully disappointed after all the hype

[5/10 · 14 December 2004]

First of all, I have not read the book, so this is not going to be a comparison between it and this miniseries.

I began watching this long-awaited mini-series after many days of hyped promotional, commentaries and articles on the Sci-Fi channel and the IMDb, but I have to say I was terribly disappointed with the first part. After what it seemed like a good start, it began to degenerate into a dull, derivative Harry Potter-esquire copy, a monotonous High School story with clichéd characters and all.

I can only give it a 5 out of 10. I will probably not see the second part, having lost interest in the first.

King Arthur (2004)

Puerile storytelling, plot less drama

[3/10 · 17 September 2004]

While I do admire the producers' efforts to show something akin to a historically accurate story about the Britton hero Actorius, I have to say I did not expect much from this movie before going to see it and yet was uncomfortably surprised by the fact that my expectations were higher than what the movie delivered! Weak plot, ho-hum acting, so-so battle scenes, and the rest just plain boring.

The fact that this movie is a rehash of Seven Samurai does not help it much, the bad storytelling of the movie being enough of a turn-off. The battle scenes were nothing I had not seen before in much better movies; the speech given by Actorius to his 5th century knights before the final battle resembled Braveheart's speech before the battle at Stirling Bridge (without the bridge, in either films). Let just say I prefer to see the opening sequence of Gladiator and hit the replay button a couple of times, in order to receive a much more satisfying experience as far as Roman warfare goes.

The love scene between Guinevere and Arthur (Actorius) was so forced I thought I was seeing a prostitute on the job.

My last problem with the movie: trebuchets? In the 5th Century? And crossbows, for Pete's sake? Why didn't the producers introduce hand and hoop cannons, and just represent the battle at Crécy (100 Year War)?

Two out of, oh, a thousand stars. It is just THAT bad.

The New Yankee Workshop (1989–2009)

Perfect mortises in half the time??

[12 June 2003]

I love Norm! I love the show!

My amateur woodworking hobby started after watching a few shows of NYW, where one gets to watch in awe as His Normness builds a perfect piece of furniture without any mistakes, in just (apparently) a weekend!

Actually, it takes Norm a bit to build a Missionary-style cabinet, but the tips one picks up - not to mention the sheer envy of seeing him working with all those cool tools! - make the whole experience worthwhile and very entertaining.

Norm is one of the best TV-woodworkers there can be, and all the stuff he builds can actually be build by just anyone with a few of the tools he has... Of course, he has $15,000.00 worth of tools and I only have about $500.00 cheap Chinese tools, but hey what the heck! I can still tape the shows and maybe do some of those projects when I upgrade!

Star Trek: Enterprise (2001–2005)

Not as bad as some say, not as good yet as some say.

[18 February 2003]

I like the show. To put it more accurately, I like the concept behind it: the characters, the sense of 'family' they relay to me, the idea these guys don't know everything - for a change!! (unlike ST:TNG and ST:Voyager, where everybody was a damned cosmologist)

But, not wanting to put syrup in everything, I must say the show could use some better writers. I have just seen the up-teen episode where the crew of Enterprise (you name which) find a derelict vessel with a crazy loner and his daughter (Forbidden Planet, anyone???).

I wish the series would just get out of this familiar and quite tiresome pattern and focus on those that are truly thought-provoking - like 'Dear Doctor', one of the greatest ST episodes I have ever seen. This is the kind of story I want to see, not the 'humanoid with latex bumps falling in love with Tripp' kind.

D.A.R.Y.L. (1985)

So-so scifiesque drama

[17 February 2003]

Wish upon a star... And maybe you too can become a real boy!

Sloppy and drippy drama about a boy with a computer chip in his head a la The Terminal Man, except this boy doesn't run amok. 'DARYL' is part of a US Army experimental project (what else???) to build the perfect soldier, but is stolen by its creator and set loose in a small town of America called Anywhereville.

The movie takes the audience to the usual orphaned robot-meets-new-friend plot, after which the baddies (the Army boys) captures DARYL and wants to shut down the experiment (due to budget cuts, I imagine, even though it was the time of Reaganomics. Oh, well...)

After DARYL escapes the Army base on an SR-71 Blackbird, he escapes only to 'drown' in a lake (a very small lake by the look of it, which he manages to bulls-eye), he gets rescued and... well, don't wanna spoil it for ya.

The movie is simply too 'cutesy' and does not seriously address the point here: what kind of ethical issues arises when somebody takes a B-O-Y and puts a computer in his head! This is a living being we're talking about, for cryin' out loud! It is very different from the other 'robot' movie (albeit even more boring), called A.I. At least the robot in AI is a true robot, not a flesh-and-bone being with a micro-chip for a brain - considering the limitations of microprocessors in the middle 80s, I would guess the producers of DARYL all had 8086s in THEIR heads.

Krull (1983)

Cheesy movie, so-so music

[16 December 2002]

Don't bother with the movie: I watched the original 'At the Movies' review with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert back in the early 80's and I agree with their assessment: The movie sucks!

The music is pretty good, although a bit over the top: it plays a fanfare for too long in the beginning. This is a guy who's in love with trombones and french horns! It was like listening to a symphonic poem for the clue-less.

The Krull refers to some extremely stupid dramatic resource, i.e. a star-shaped whirling weapon that, in the hand of a worthy person (who else could it be?) it could do truly wondrous things, like opening a hole in solid rock as if it were a tin can. The plot is simple and straight forward: A black lord of some sort, looking suspiciously too much like Lord of the Ring's Sauron, lands on a peaceful planet where people lived in an idyllic surrounding not unlike that of a fairy tale, complete with castles with pointy towers. The hero is about to get married to a beautiful maiden (well, you have to use your imagination a bit, since that English chick ain't that hot), but his betrothed gets snatched by the evil servants of Sauron - huh, excuse me, the Black Lord, who scurry back to the fortress, which conveniently disappears, only to appear in another part of the planet - which, also conveniently, is not very far from where the hero is... Well, he's told by a sage to get the Krull from some mountain cave, and use it to defeat the evil flirt. The rest of course, is history!

You could say it's worth a night with friends, popcorn and beer. It has no other value, cinematically speaking.

Three and a Half Musketeers (1957)

One of best spoofs from the best Mexican comedian of all time

[1 October 2002]

If there is anything to be commented on this film, you would only need one word: Delicious!

The story is well known and the movie follows it without much deviation, except of course for the in-house Mexican jokes; Germán Valdés (a.k.a. Tin-Tán) plays D'Artagnan with his usual comedic genius, while his brother Ramón Valdés plays the sinister Rochefort. Along with the rest of the cast, Valdés delivers an extremely enjoyable version of Dumas The Three Musketeers, which rivals succesfully with other, more modern versions (like the superior 1975 version with Michael York, or the more recent but more pedestrian versions).

Doctor Who (1963–1989)

The best show that can be done with the worst budget...

[26 July 2002]

Probably no other Sci-Fi show changed my view of this world more than this one. If you wanted to learn about human values, this was it. Don't think so? The good Doctor was the only alien who favored humans over other types of aliens (his favorite species, he called us... sniff). He considered them worth saving (thanks!). He almost always took human companions and was truly distraught every time a person was killed by one of his enemies. He fought those forces that tried to step over the Earth with scientific knowledge and good thinking. His motto: Science rules!

The episode 'The Mandragora Helix' was clearly done not as your usual monster show, but to put critical thinking and rationalism in its proper place: above ignorance, superstition, and quackery. He had a scientific (albeit sometimes wrong or unlikely) explanation for all phenomena, never introducing a magical or supernatural being into the discussion: there is always a natural cause for things in this Universe.

I simply loved Tom Baker's shows, and tried to watch every one, although the later shows were kind of silly. Still, Peter Davison did a good job interpreting the beloved Doctor with youthful panache... I guess you need a handsome lead person sometimes to spice things up! But Tom Baker is still my #1 favourite: He could act with the perfect blend of adventurer, philosopher and debunker. My hero!

My favourite episodes? The Talons of Wen-Chiang, The Genesis of the Daleks. Both were scarier than most mega-bucks feature-film horror stories, and better acted too.

Small Wonder (1985–1989)

Boring, derivative sit-com of the 80's

[3/10 · 28 May 2002]

All right, I did watch almost every episode, since the artificial intelligence theme always intrigued me. But the show was badly acted, Dick Christie was obnoxious to the point of homicide, and many situations were not funny at all. The girl was very cute, but she kind of creeped me out with her expression-less face (she did that pretty well, at least...)

It is true most of the cast killed their acting career opportunities appearing in this show, which tells you that if you want to go on to bigger things, you should not appear in any low-grade TV trash unless you're in the gutter yourself.

Swing Kids (1993)

Mediocre drama about Nazi regime's oppression of swing kids

[5/10 · 4 April 2002]

A war-time drama about young people part of an underground Swing Music culture in Nazi Germany at the late 1930's.

Unfortunately, what could have been a very interesting look at a rarely known cultural phenomenon at a time when National Socialism was dictating which music to hear and act to follow, became merely a backdrop for a silly and life-less drama about some friends and how they distanced one from the other because of not so unusual circumstances.

I just couldn't see the point of this movie, since I only got a passing glance at the Swing culture with not a sence of what drove these kids to it except, maybe, to go to dance halls and have fun. Yipee... Why was the movement such a threat in the minds of Nazi party officials? You won't get the answer here... How did this culture permeated right past the Nazi propaganda and censorship?? You only get a very small glimpse. The important thing, at least from the movie's point of view, is the relationship between the friends and how it deteriorates after the main characters join the Hitlerjungen. Big deal! This sort of thing happens every time childhood friends join the army, college, Fundamentalist Christian sects, etc. It seems the director and screenwriter just abducted the Swing Kids theme to show us another pedestrian 'friends-go-at-each-other-again' melodrama.

Five stars out of ten for me. Just mediocre.