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elscorcho10101
Reviews
Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006)
I'm Reviewing This As A Film, Not A "Kid's Movie"
I'm sure that the majority of people who are voting on here and who viewed the film are either young children or the parents of young children. I'm not here to criticize you or to act like this movie was anything more than it was supposed to be: a sequel to a kid's movie.
With that said, the film is far inferior (as expected with sequels, especially of this nature) to the original. The original was a cool concept (honest to God no pun intended) with a great cast of characters and a very tight, easy to follow plot for children. Not that kids need a plot really. This film had more characters than could possibly fit in such a simple film and to be honest many of them were annoying. Really annoying.
As expected, the acorn-hungry rat (his name escapes me) makes a return. This time, thankfully, he gets more screen time and many times becomes the comic relief in between sleep-inducing doses of the substanceless plot.
Reread the first paragraph again if needed.
One thing that startled me about this film was the somewhat out of place grim moments (in as close as a scary movie moment as a film like this can have, a turtlesque creature is devoured while going for an innocent swim) and the low brow sex humor between Manny and Ellie. There isn't really a purpose in trying to tie in adult themes to this sort of movie. The adults are going anyway because kids don't go to movies by themselves. Is there really a point in having two talking mammoths get into a debate about sex? Are you serious? So to sum up: obviously an uninspired attempt to mooch more cash off of the profits of the original Ice Age. As long as 3d talking animals are making money, there will continue to be more films that include them.
Go if you have kids or if you LOVED the original. Otherwise, just download the parts with the acorn and the rat.
Sahara (2005)
Laughable Cookie-Cutter Hollywood Bore-a-thon
In between being the bitch of Hollywood's latest popular twenty-something chick flick star, Matthew McCaughnehey (sp??? Like I care) has time to be a buff civil war buff. Because all historians have party boy personalities and memberships to both the tanning salon and the local gym.
As if that wasn't already insulting enough, the role of the in distress, educated do-gooder for bone-headed Matt to wind up seducing (as only a musclehead slash archelogical expert with a smartass southern dialect can)is Penelope Cruz. After seeing this movie, I'm convinced she'd make a better freedom fighter, or even janitor than she would an actress. Her performance is unintentionally hilarious.
Not hilarious? Steve Zahn, in yet ANOTHER, quirky wisecracking sidekick role. It is likely he is so deep in his pigeonhole that he'll never be seen anywhere else again.
The book might actually be interesting. The plot seems interesting enough when it is thought of in the context of a few hundred pages. But here? No. This isn't a detailed suspense novel, this is a typical formulaic Hollywood stupidfest. Sadly, I saw that it took four people to write the screenplay. I hope they gave the author of the novel a fortune. It'd take seven figures for me to allow my literary art to be raped mercilessly by the likes of Hollywood's D students.
Go see if you're into the usual Hollywood garb. It isn't like I needed to say that. Everyone knew what this was going to be.
Rent (2005)
Like Watching a Cover Band Instead of the Real Thing
The film started promisingly with some surprisingly ambitious camera work. It is obvious for this to succeed as a film and surpass or be as intriguing as the musical itself is to be visually ambitious and interesting. Sadly, not the case. Predictably, Chris Columbus comes in with a total lack of creativity and imagination and creates a diet version of the marvelous musical.
I am totally shocked at this film's IMDb score. Aside from Rent fans giving it a high score just to support the Rent legacy, I can see no reason anyone who has seen the actual musical Rent wouldn't be very disappointed with this lackluster and poorly executed change of medium. It is also far too long for what it is.
An ambitious project requires a creative, innovative and yes, ambitious director. Chris Columbus (of Home Alone fame) is certainly not the choice and it shows.
100 Girls (2000)
Pseudointellectual Teen Drivel
I saw this film for the third time last night. The first time I saw it was years ago before I even knew how to recognize decent film-making. The second time, a few years later, was with my roommate. We both had the giggles and weren't really paying attention.
Last night I finally watched it with a knowledge of film and concentration. The results were disappointing to say the least.
This film is a teen movie taken up a notch. Imagine "Ten Things I Hate About You" rated R and you have this movie. What the movie tries to accomplish in maturity with regard to subject matter, it loses in the maturity with regard to the construction of the film itself. The actors are for the most part sub par, the script is obviously an underdeveloped first or second draft and possibly most annoyingly: the film seeks to uplift itself as an intelligent and profound way of looking at men and women. Instead of doing so, it embarrasses itself by establishing and embracing far more stereotypes than it discusses breaking down, assumes every young member of society is completely devoid of the ability to be thoughtful and respectful to the opposite sex and basically urinates on the genre of the teen movie all the while trying to lift it up to somewhere else.
If you're a teen movie enthusiast who happens to be above the age of thirteen or fourteen (if such a thing exists), this movie is watchable. It has all the staples: pop punk music, sweeping generalizations about college America (because in real colleges, girls walk around in their bras all the time) and an as a whole totally waste of film.
This film is as disposable its performances, script and direction. The few penis jokes worth laughing at are not worth sitting through the rest of it. Pitiful.
Mulholland Dr. (2001)
Beautiful and Abstract, Lynch Finally Gets It Right Without Sacrificing His Style
Mulholland Drive is Lynch to the bone, but it is more than just another one of his "weird to be weird" trips. Even without enjoying most David Lynch films, this film is gorgeous. The direction is tremendous, the idea and depth behind the narrative is something not usually embraced by Hollywood (sadly), and Naomi Watts establishes herself as one of the most overlooked and versatile talents in on screen acting.
Mulholland Dr is an artistic, flexible and well-developed film, that anyone who can (forgive the pun) think outside the box will enjoy. Anyone who enjoys the typical Hollywood trash should step away from this one, it isn't an A to B plot, it isn't filled with action sequences. Don't bother.
The Indian in the Cupboard (1995)
A Family Film Gone Wrong
I'll totally exclude the fact that they raped the book. The book is delightful, enchanting and enthralling.
The movie is the total opposite of all these things. The acting is awful on all fronts. Terrible directing from Frank Oz, terrible casting, terrible everything. I only revisited this disaster to put myself to sleep last night.
There are only a few circumstances for anyone to be seeing this.
Dodge at all costs unless you're curious about the book comparison or if you have a kid that you need to distract for 90 minutes or so. Horrendous adaptation, horrendous film-making.
Songcatcher (2000)
Just Awful.
Disastrous. This film is a weakly acted, weakly edited, loosely pieced together atrocity. I guarantee that the only people giving this movie a rating of 10 worked on the film in some way.
The movie starts out decently enough, but it soon becomes obvious that the film falls victim to an all too common fate with musical productions: singing > acting. The songs and performances are heartfelt, beautiful and well done. The acting in between is laughable.
Then there is the script. Wow. I'm not sure what the original draft contained, but whoever trimmed didn't trim enough. There are no less than 3 useless subplots to this film including an absurd lesbian thread and a whole two minutes devoted to the tragedy of one mountain family in particular, which resolves so abruptly and ridiculously that the tragedy is more comical than tear-inducing.
Speaking of abrupt, the film ends out of nowhere, which is actually beneficial since it's so horrible.
If you have a background in folk songs and American music origins, blah blah, sit down, ignore the awful film-making and enjoy the songs. If you are anyone other than this, dodge at all costs.
King Kong (2005)
Beautiful homage to a Fim Classic
First off, I don't know anyone who is unaware of the length of this film. It's 3 hours and 7 minutes long. If it isn't worth it to you to sit that long and view a film, then don't go. The average length of a film in my experience is between 90 and 120 minutes. That doesn't mean that a film that is of greater length deserves to be belittled simply because it isn't the "right" length the general movie-going audience's rear end has been adapted to expect. If the average film had been 5 hours long, then people would complain that it was too short. The length of this film has NOTHING to do with its quality or lack thereof and shouldn't be on the score chart.
With that said, Watts, Brody and yes, even Jack Black are fantastic. The CGI is beautiful and all the nitpicks I have about Jackson's directing are personal tastes issues that have nothing to do with the film being "better" or "worse." The CGI looks pretty good all in all (yes, it is obvious in a few longer shots that they're computer generated, but whatever. No one is perfect). It is a surprisingly complex film exploring relationships between a wide array of well developed characters and showing off the best in CGI with entertaining action sequences.
I would recommend to anyone who enjoys a movie, and doesn't mind it taking 3 hours in order to do so.