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Reviews
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Overrated, but a good film, especially the first time.
Empire is an entertaining film and a terrific setup for the finale. The battle and setup at Hoth is entertaining. The exchanges between Han and Lea are entertaining. The droids are quite funny in this one, but don't belittle the drama. The development of Darth Vader and the Empire is vicious and well placed. The end a real cliff hanger and a surprise the first time through.
So why not 10 stars? My main complaint of the film is the middle act isn't exciting. Just think for a second about all the fun action in the middle of a new hope compared to Empire. In A New Hope they get on the Falcon, Luke trains in the force, a planet is destroyed, they encounter the death star, they hide from the troops, they save the princess, Obi-Wan fights Vader and dies, they fight off a ton of troops to get back to the falcon and they fight some tie fighters in the air to escape the Death Star. In Empire Strikes back Han, Lea and company try to escape the empire before eventually getting caught. Darth Vader and the empire decide to try to convert Luke, and Luke learns from Yoda before eventually leaving against Yoda's will to save his friends.
Sorry Empire, but in comparison, that isn't a lot of excitement especially if you have already seen the film before. How could the middle act have been better you might ask? I say increase the pace of everything, especially Yoda and Luke's first meeting. Maybe Han could have had Chewy and/or Lea firing at the tie fighters and bombers from the gunner position while on the run. There also could have been a space fight with cloud city with Lando saving the Falcon crew at the last moment.
All I'm saying is that there's a real excitement void in the middle act of the movie which everyone seems to gloss over. And i think this shortcoming is more than enough to make Empire the worst, rather than the best of the original trilogy. It's still a solid film, but I like Return of the Jedi and A New Hope more. and I'm bewildered by the masses who proclaim Empire to be the best Star Wars movie or one of the best movies ever.
Woman in Gold (2015)
Great writing, acting, and execution
This movie seems very underrated overall. I think it deserves somewhere near an 8 on the overall ranking. The acting was great. Mirren was great like always, and Reynalds shined more than i thought possible. The editing was a strength for this movie with the exception of the very end which i thought could have been more succinct and joyous. The movie excelled at showing rather than telling, and the flashback scenes were both more numerous and powerful than i anticipated. They also were pieced together perfectly to intelligently enrich the main timeline. Also the movie provided some timely humor, some great educational information, some great role model characters, without being pandering. I expected to like this movie more than most people due to being so interesting in art, but I definitely would recommend the Woman in Gold to any friend of mine with confidence they would enjoy it.
Interstellar (2014)
No sound or visual can fix story moments and writing that doesn't make sense
Interstellar might be more realistically sound in creating a space-like environment than any movie before.
The Issues of the movie, whether noticed or ignored by the spectators, is for visual and audio emotion to overcome logic and sense within the story.
The beginning is pretty good. The earth is displayed very interestingly and tragically. The characters are introduced very effectively. The point of the father and kids corralling that satellite with their truck turned out to be for no real reason, but at the time it seemed a cool and important moment. But the whole story up to them taking off for space was mostly fine.
The part of the movie that bothered me, and should bother everyone, isn't the beginning and isn't the climax when McConnahey's Character enters the black hole and communicates with his daughter through time. The bookcase was a peculiar means, but overall that isn't the main issue. The issue in the film is the entire journey leading up to him entering the black hole. And then his choice to jump ship at the end.
There didn't need to 3 separate planets to choose between. Think about it. If there were two, they would have had no choice, but to go to Damon's planet after the disaster at the first planet, and then going into the black hole would have felt like the only option.
The first planet only served the point of moving the earth story ahead 23 years. It made no sense for the one crew member who stayed on the station to not spend almost all of his 23 years in stasis. Instead he spent almost all that time "not wasting his life" by accomplishing nothing by himself for 20 years. Just so when Hathaway and McConnahey returned they could be shocked by seeing in front of them all of the time that passed. And another complaint. How did they even return from the planet. They lifted off earth in a Saturn 5 style rocket, in which they left behind virtually all their liftoff power in takeoff. However, they still managed to liftoff of the 2 other planets later with just the fuselage engines. And that water planet had a stronger gravity than earth. This allowed them to have the visual and emotional drama of a rocket launch when McConnahey leaves his daughter. But there is no easy way to write in multiple other rocket engines appearing magically in space for future takeoffs. So they pretend afterward that they never needed a rocket in the first place.
Another giant complaint of mine is how earth was continually able to send video messages to the people on the missions, but the people on the missions couldn't send anything comparable back. Or if they could, they just didn't for no sensible reason. Again, this is noticeable bad writing in deciding to have visual and audio emotion overcome logic. Hathaway after making decisions that lead to a crewman's death, convincing McConnahey to go to the planet of her crush rather than the planet of best life likelihood, is another example of emotion over sense from a story writing standpoint. The sound served the same purpose much of the time. It overshadowing the dialogue so feel could mask their talking, which was often confusingly scientific,and supernatural fused with philosophical. Those two things are often at odds with each other. But they presented them as if all science deals with both. They also often described things that the characters should already known just because they are trying desperately to keep the audience in the loop with what is going on.(bad writing) Anyway. The decision to listen to Hathaway ends up being wrong. It would have bothered me even more if it was right. But it leads to meeting Matt Damon's character who turns out to be psychotic and selfish. More unsuccessful drama building with the music and visual overshadowing the story aspects which really weren't too strong. All of this leads to McConnahey's character unexpectedly(which shouldn't have been the feeling) jumping into the black hole which magically does allow him to save everything.
The story, to remain inconsistent and irritating, does the complete opposite of emotion over logic later in the story. When father and daughter finally reunite.(His daughter is now on her death bed despite no explanation to how she went form McConnahey's age to way older) McConnahey is finally there for his family. But next minute he leaves to go after Hathaway in space. Getting back to his daughter was supposed to be the main character's goal after saving the planet. But when he finally actually does return, all he can do is leave again. I don't care if the daughter was old or if she told him to go. She had an entire family that would have loved him to be a family member again. Even if it was for a week or something. We don't even know how much aging might have happened to Hathaway in that time. It would make sense to think that the black hole was what kept McConnahey's character young as time sped forward for everyone else. This means that the main character picks Hathaway's character over his daughter, who saved everyone and is now on her death bed. Hathaway meanwhile accidentally made decisions that killed a crew member, chose love over logical science as a scientist to disastrous consequences, had a father who was a traitor and liar to everyone, and she is now old and possibly dead.
WHY DO SO MANY PEOPLE SKIP OVER ALL THE MOVIE'S PROBLEMS?
Miracles Out of Nowhere (2015)
Very Enjoyable, wish there was more
I came in as a big Kansas fan, like many watching this film I imagine did. But there was a lot to like if you are a classic rock or Progressive rock music fan in general. And there's a good chance one would like the film even if they didn't know anything of Kansas going in. The editing and pacing is very good for the casual viewer, and the twists and turns and since of beating the odds and rising from obscurity to the main stage is a story that is easy to like for just about anyone. The band members come off as very humble which is a nice refreshing change compared to many bands. The doc ends at the moment the band reaches their pinnacle,(not the song:) so there is no info on the bands decline and it's nasty effects which is mostly nice to avoid seeing. It's a very satisfying documentary.
As a Kansas I was a bit surprised that the documentary didn't cover Monolith or Audio Visions albums since the original 6 were still together for those two, and both albums were solid, if not legendary. I wish there was more talk about some of the deeper tracks on the albums, which many Kansas fans like but know very little of their origins. Also I would have loved to hear more on how all the members got together. I know it wasn't as quick of a process as they made it out to be. But I really liked the documentary being focused on their unlikely rise to fame, in contrast to telling the usual band story of disagreeing, changing, breaking up, changing members, getting back together, etc.(Not that Kansas didn't go through all of that stuff) It seemed the thing was edited with a determined focus on fitting a 2 hour TV window.(which it did) I wish there was a longer edit too.
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Q Who (1989)
Overrated Contribed Episode (spoilers)
I like the Borg as much as anyone else. But the characters in this episode make decisions that don't make sense, which is bad writing. Picard asks Guinnea for advice and then ignores her when she tells him not to enter the ship. The ship barely survives an assault, and then instead of leaving, They decide to have a conference while parked right by the dangerous ship, and then board the ship. This was made so just to see the inside of the ship, which was cool, but writing needs to make sense for me to rate something very high. They episode is nonetheless suspenseful and intriguing because the Borg are awesome, but this is by no means a great Borg episode if you care about story logic.