You guys all know how much I love Pixar (and if you don’t look at my series of Pixar Reviews). So it is such a treat this year to have 2 Pixar movies!!!! And the cool thing is they are both so different. Inside Out we got a thoughtful, funny, moving story of the inside of a little girls mind. And in Good Dinosaur we are getting a Finding Nemo-like adventure of a dinosaur named Arlo trying to find his family. He meets a boy named Spot who becomes his travel-mate and he also meets a group of t-rex dinosaurs who he appears to be friends with.
I don’t know a whole lot else about the story but they just released a new trailer yesterday and it looks like a beautiful film. I am so impressed with the realism of the plants, water, and other scenery. I am also excited about the relationship between Arlo and Spot. It looks like it is going to have a ton of heart to it. The only thing I am not sold on yet is the design of the T-rex dinosaurs. They look a little unfinished for Pixar so I hope they are still working on them and will be better in final film.
What did you guys think of the new trailer? Here are some more of my thoughts.
So I finally finished my video on the 2012 Oscars. Sorry this one took me so long (and it was a pain to edit today also!).
In 2012 we had 5 nominees and they all have their strengths.
Brave– I recently talked about that in my Pixar review. It is a flawed film that doesn’t deliver what it promises in the first 15 minutes. It is supposed to be an epic legend but turns out to be a domestic dispute between a mother and a daughter. I don’t mind that but it is a letdown when we are promised something mythic. I do like Merida, the music and the animation is top notch. I personally feel they took a lot of the lessons from Brave and used them to make Frozen better.
Paranorman- My favorite Liaka film and a film that made my top 50 animated films (so clearly I like it). I really like the character of Norman and the fresh take they have on the bully narrative with the bullied becoming the bully. I think it is very scary and funny with unique world building and character design.
Frankenweenie- This was a new one for me. I had avoided it because I really don’t care for Tim Burton’s style of movies. However, I must admit that I thought it was charming. I really liked the relationship between Victor and Sparky. It makes you want to cry when he loses his dog and all the homages to the classic horror films are a lot of fun. I also enjoy how they made it in black and white. Overall a very entertaining film with a lot of heart.
Pirates Band of Misfits- One of Aardman’s best films with incredible attention to detail it is an underrated film. They pack in the laughs and yet still tell a good story with the Captain wanting to win Pirate of the Year and his interactions with both Charles Darwin and Queen Victoria. If you haven’t seen it trust me it is worth a watch!
Wreck-it Ralph– A film that starts out and ends strong but gets mired in a bland Sugar Rush world in the middle section. Most people love this film but I think it is good but not perfect. I like the character of Ralph but Vanellope I find annoying. With the power cord train station they promise you all the worlds of the video games and yet spend 75 minutes in Sugar Rush, which to me is a disappointment. But it is still an enjoyable film. The villain reveal is done very well and I love Sergeant Tamora.
Like I said in the video, I think most people would pick Wreck-it Ralph for 2012 Oscar. I can totally see that. Of course, Brave won in a bit of an upset. I personally would give it to Paranorman but I know I’m in the deep minority on that. They are all enjoyable films. 🙂
First, I want to say that I finished reading the book The Martian by Andrew Weir this week and loved it. I normally don’t like a lot of modern novels but this book resisted the modern cliche of having the lead character be all brooding and conflicted. It had the audaciousness to have a lead current-day character that is actually likable!!! I seriously feel like that is so rare in modern books (even YA we get a lot of Bellas and dystopian brooding characters snooze…).
In both the movie and the book I loved the character of Mark Watney and found even the smallest victories compelling. Plus, the overall story of his rescue is so exciting!
If you don’t know The Martian is about an astronaut named Mark (Matt Damon) who is left in a storm by his crew on Mars. Each day then presents Mark with a series of problems, which he uses his know-how as a botanist and scientist to solve.
I never thought I would be so excited for a character growing potatoes but I’m telling you in both the book and movie it is so thrilling when he harvests crops on Mars just based on his ingenuity and smarts.
He’s also such a likable character. In the movie and book much of his personality is presented through daily logs that he does. In these entries he is serious but also extremely funny. It feels like a well-rounded real person. Matt Damon is just nerdy enough and cool enough to pass off both sides of Mark’s personality. It really worked!
It is perhaps easy to compare The Martian to Interstellar because both have Matt Damon as a marooned astronaut but they are totally different films. One is a philosophical treatise on the meaning of life and the connection of individuals and the other is an engrossing action movie about a man trying to get rescued and survive.
It is perhaps closer to Gravity but that is really more of a thriller with Sandra Bullock’s character being much less of an expert and more a helpless pedestrian in space who has to figure out a way home. The tone in films is very different. I loved all 3 films so it is good company any way!
The surrounding players around Damon really helped as well. To me there wasn’t a single misfire in the cast. Director Ridley Scott did a great job and that is saying something considering some recent misfires like Exodus: Gods and Kings. Jessica Chastain, Michael Pena, Kate Mara, and more play the crew that leaves Mark for dead. For not being in that many scenes they are fleshed out characters that have to make difficult decisions about their lives verses one man left behind. Throughout the movie there is a looming question- ‘how valuable is one human being?’.
Jeff Daniels is great as the head of NASA. He has to deal with the bureaucratic side of things and could have been a one note bad man executive character but he’s not. He’s practical but wants to do what is right as well. Chiwetel Ejiofor is the mission director who becomes an advocate for Mark and in a way helps narrate the story back at home. Kristen Wiig is the PR rep for NASA and she does a good job being practical like needing a good photo of Mark on Mars to sell the public on him while still intensely caring for him too.
Sean Bean is a director who refuses to see the practical, bureaucratic side of things and Donald Glover is a young astronomer who has a breakthrough that helps the rescue. They all make such good use of their minimal screen time.
I was totally engrossed in this picture. It is the kind of film you want to finish and cheer. And this works because Mark is such a good person. You want to believe in the value of one person and that such effort would be made to rescue the one. A side of me kind of wishes it was a true story especially when the Chinese get involved. Wouldn’t it be great if we were all rooting for the same humans?
With Gravity there is a sense of relief when she is free from danger but it’s the kind of relief that you get at the end of a thriller. The bad guy (outer space) is defeated and the character can breath. The Martian is a triumph of human being over insane odds so it has more a tone of a Rocky movie or a sports movie with the underdog finishing victorious!
It’s a cliche but I literally was on the edge of my seat. I was leaning as close to the screen as I could get I was so anxious for everything to work out. I couldn’t have been more absorbed in the film. And just as in the book each victory for Mark makes you smile. It’s so satisfying!!
As far as content it is on a whole pretty tame. There are 4 F words and a few other profanities. You do see Matt Damon’s butt in a scene and he does surgery on himself that is bloody. That’s it. I have to say I would feel comfortable taking mature kids and teens to The Martian. It actually could inspire kids to see so many creative uses for science and math used by a variety of different personalities.
I loved The Martian in both book and movie form. I recommend reading the book first and then seeing the movie if you can. I did not see it in 3D or on Imax but I am sure it is cool in those formats.
Definitely my favorite live action film of the year. Go see it!
Yesterday was a very sad day for me at the movies. I was going to see the Iron Giant special release and went to the Draper theater instead of The District and by the time I noticed it I was too late to make the film. 🙁
I had my popcorn and icee in tow and not wanting to just leave I decided to go see The Visit. My brother really liked it as well as some friends and I have been trying to expand my movie comfort zone a little bit with a few more scary movies. So I guess take this review with a grain of salt because it after all wasn’t Iron Giant…wa, wa, wa.
So what did I think of The Visit?
Well, I thought it was a thoroughly generic predictable horror movie. I am not the most versed in the genre but I could predict everything that was going to happen. And of course because it is M Night Shyamalan we get a big twisteroo that was so obvious even for him. So no I wasn’t really a fan.
There are some good things about it. First, the performances are all fine. Most of Shyamalan’s movies have fine performances. The two kids are particularly good with Olivia DeJonge as Rebecca and Ed Oxenbound (from Alexander Terrible Day).
The Visit is also much tighter than the typical Shyamalan film. There are no speeches and philosophizing and thank goodness he doesn’t cast himself in the movie (I’m talking to you Lady in the Water). This may be Shyamalan’s tightest film with really no dead time where the story isn’t moving along.
But just because something is better than garbage doesn’t mean it is good. I’d rather watch the transformers movies than watch most of Shyamalan’s films and that’s saying something. I’d sit through Nut Job, Legends of Oz and Hero of Color City before watching The Last Airbender or After Earth again (those were the 3 worst animated films of 2014).
I feel like a lot of people are giving The Visit a pass because it isn’t as bad as The Village or The Happening. I’d agree with them but if it was Johnny Movie Man making the film I think 90% of critics would be giving it a lower score as a generic predictable horror film. I mean is it really as good as The Conjuring or something like that?
I don’t want to give any spoilers away but basically the film is about 2 kids that go for a visit to see their grandparents. Their mother is estranged from them but they want to see the grandkids. She sends them off without showing them a picture. Don’t you think a mother who is estranged from her parents would want to show the kids a picture of the parents? Especially if they are getting on a train and having to meet strangers? I found that highly improbable. And if things were so bad between mother and parents with no pictures or physical contact wouldn’t she have them watched out for by a friend of hers from high school or something like that? It all seemed hard to believe.
But fine accept that the Grandparents seem lovable at first but then weird stuff starts happening and at first they discount it as old people stuff, but it keeps building to a point where they really should be asking more questions and seeking help. We also find out where the Grandparents volunteer each week, which I won’t give away because it gives away a lot.
The thing with most horror movies is that characters get signs to leave or get out of the house and then they make the wrong decision every time. This movie is no different. The ending is tense but the kids had so many opportunities to leave and they keep going back for another interview or another discussion that it defies credulity even for children.
The other bone I have to pick with this film is it is shot in found footage style which is annoying but also makes no sense to the story. There is no way the Grandparent characters would allow the filming to take place or participate in it. It doesn’t make sense with their characters or personality traits in every other way in the film. The found footage also causes a lot of telling rather than showing and it just makes the whole movie seem so unbelievable. I understand they shoot films this way because it is cheap but it comes off looking just that and again it doesn’t work with the characters and story we are being told. It would have been so much better if it had been shot like a regular film. I haven’t been a fan of Shyamalan’s films but he usually shoots them adequately.
So that’s why in the end the movie felt really stupid to me. The characters behaved in nonsensical or stupid ways and the story didn’t really make sense or was completely obvious so not very scary (and I get scared pretty easily).
Like I said, I really feel like people are giving this a pass because it isn’t as bad as Shyamalan’s other films but is it really good? I guess if you like generic predictable horror movies than this is for you. As for me I thought it was lame but then again I was expecting to see Iron Giant so take it for what it’s worth. Sigh…
If you want to be scared I think The Gift is much better. It is still creeping me out when I think about it. It’s way more realistic, surprising and scary with really good performances.
Overall Grade- C- for the good performances and tightness of story.
You guys all know how much I love Pixar (and if you don’t look at my series of Pixar Reviews). So it is such a treat this year to have 2 Pixar movies!!!! And the cool thing is they are both so different. Inside Out we got a thoughtful, funny, moving story of the inside of a little girls mind. And in Good Dinosaur we are getting a Finding Nemo-like adventure of a dinosaur named Arlo trying to find his family. He meets a boy named Spot who becomes his travel-mate and he also meets a group of t-rex dinosaurs who he appears to be friends with.
