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Rush (2013)
Enjoyed this all the way through
Excellent film, based on a true story about the rivalry between two Formula 1 drivers in the '70s. Clever way to get fast cars and things blowing up into a film without it being gratuitous. The two men call each other "asshole," and they're both well justified, but as the film goes on and the excitement and stress builds, we see flashes of the good human sides of both and it's hard to decide who to root for more.
It's not often that I can sit through an entire film and be so involved at all times that I forget about time passing and never once want it to be over already, but this one achieved it. I'm not a racing fan, so I had very little background or context, but it all made perfect sense as it unrolled, and now I know a lot more about Formula 1 racing and World Championships.
A couple of short scenes of injuries were hard to watch.
Museum Hours (2012)
Waste of time
I like a wide variety of movies, but the only reason that I managed to sit through this one was because I went with a friend. Even so, I so badly wanted to get out and go do something else with my day. This falls into what one might call "artsy fartsy"--something so wrapped up in being artistic that it doesn't actually get anywhere. If you like spending two hours watching images of art and images of real life that maybe looks like art, with occasional commentary about art, then this is for you. There's no plot--the blurbs and reviews that say things like "two people develop their relationship by a deeper understanding of art and the world around them" is nonsense--there's not enough plot there to actually be called a plot and not enough character development to really care about the few scenes in which they appear. So--lots of shots of heads, of birds, of drab scenes with red accents, never clear why. EVERYTHING in this movie is slow. Everything. Do not expect to have a single exciting or wake-up moment anywhere. There are probably a dozen funny lines. I suppose that you could come away with the message that art is life and life is art, but I don't have to sit for two hours seeing silent pictures of art and pictures of street scenes to get that message.
White House Down (2013)
OK for something to do on a hot summer day.
White House Down--well, the Principle of Evil Marksmanship was blatantly at play here, and the film went on a little long, but OK for a guilty pleasure type of film. Yes, I expected things blowing up in the white house, but who'd'a thunk they could figure out how to do the mandatory car chase, too (although mostly to comedic effect).
It's both different and the same as Olympus Has Fallen; Olympus's plot had slightly more plausible bits and made me ponder the possibilities a little more.
You do have to leave your brain at home--the plot for WHD is pretty implausible and resolution a little ho-hum bordering on stupid. But I liked the quips and bantering and silly stuff, I liked that so many of the characters showed guts rather than there being only helpless victims, couple of the bad guys with guns bordered on being effectively threatening, and there was enough going on that it mostly kept my attention. Mostly.
Astro-Zombies (1968)
Really really bad
Am writing this review many years after seeing this film. I'm a pretty avid film-goer, and I've only wanted to walk out of a movie two or three times over many, many years, but I absolutely could not sit through this and left maybe halfway through.
The acting was bad, the plot, what there was of it, was bad, the editing was bad, the pacing was terrible... I don't remember all the details, but I remember the increasing pressure in my brain telling me to get out before I exploded.
This is not in the same class as Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, which was a deliberately done bad movie which means that there was a lot of good stuff to laugh at, and not even in the same class as Plan 9 From Outer Space, whose badness at least made me laugh.
Star Trek (2009)
Great Reboot
As background, I am not an avid Star Trek fan. Saw quite a few of episodes of the original TV series, several in the second, and none in any of the following series. I have seen all the films, however. Hated the first one (but so did almost everyone else). Never understood the attraction of Shatner's Kirk.
So. I loved this reboot. The new actor, Chris Pine, is completely believable as a younger Shatner without the self-parody that the original exuded. In fact, all the actors obviously were picked for some physical resemblance to the originals and obviously worked at sounding like the originals when they talk. That, of course, isn't all that's required for a good film, but it did make the film feel as if it were really about the same folks, which I liked.
The movie hooked me emotionally into the characters. The pacing carried me along very well. And the plot kept my interest, if not entirely making sense in a few key places, but not enough to take me out of the movie.
ParaNorman (2012)
Funny bits but not a compelling film
The animation was nifty, the humor was funny without being gross, but somehow it just wasn't a compelling film. Watched it at home rather than in the theater, and I didn't want at any time to turn it off and stop watching, although I wouldn't have minded if it had been turned off, but still it left me flat. Some of the characters and their activities seemed irrelevant to the film (Norman's sister, the kid who befriends Norman, that kid's older brother, and the bully, for example), as if the filmmakers were trying to fill time. The resolution was weak. It wasn't a terrible way to spend an evening with friends eating popcorn, but not a great way, either; there are a lot of better choices.
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
Good but not great
Acting was excellent, actors chosen for the parts were spot-on. The sets & locations & costumes seemed real. Humor and drama both worked well. But I kept tripping over the logic (as in, lack thereof) and, although some of the homages made me smile, at least one very serious scene (near the end, if you'll seen it you'll know which) was such a close copy from an earlier film that it seemed to me to cheapen what was an incredibly moving scene in that earlier film.
That said, I was carried along with the action even though I fell out of it from time to time to say, "oh, come on, really?" I know, I know, it's star trek, and this is a good star trek, but they were plot points that didn't need to be--pardon the word--illogical and would've been fairly easy to fix, IMHO.
Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)
Disappointing
I found Poppy to be annoying and unlikable except when she was with schoolchildren, which was only for a small time. There were a few mildly amusing bits of dialog but nothing particularly funny. The film went nowhere and explained nothing, even though it raised a number of relationship questions that could have been explored. We went to see it because the paper quoted a critic who gave it a 3.5 of 4 stars and said that it would all be explained "sanely." I didn't get it, even after reading several other folks' reviews. The acting was fine, which is why it wasn't a complete bomb, and I didn't walk out in the middle because I kept hoping that something--anything--would eventually become clear, although I was dying to look at my watch every few minutes. We were disappointed in our hopes. (Obviously this is my opinion because others felt that something did become clear.) I and a friend did not stay for the credits, which is very rare, because we just didn't care enough about any of it.