Fantasia 2000

I’ve never reviewed an older film before, but I felt I had something to say about this movie and damn it, I’m gonna say it.

Let me turn back the clock. It’s the mid-90s, and I own a VHS copy of Fantsia, one that I watch ad infinitum. It is my favourite movie as a kid and when I found out there was going to be a sequel I was ecstatic. I saw it at the iMax downtown… and the disappointed still shakes me to this day.

So let’s break this down to the segments and the presenters and why this movie blows mouse balls.



Symphony no. 5

Ah, Beethoven. Would Fantasia be complete without it? Of course not, he’s the one composer to make it into both films, and rightfully so. However this intro to the movie sums up nicely what is wrong with the entire movie. To begin with, it’s three minutes long. This entire film cripples itself by keeping all its sequences to about three (or less) minutes. There are only two exceptions to this, I’ll get to those later. One can argue that our attention span has decreased over the years, but I’m gonna stop you there and disagree.

Let me reiterate. Fantasy was my favourite movie as a kid. I watched it over and over and over again. The sequences in that film were about 10 minutes or more each and they never had any trouble keeping my attention. Even the opening of Fantasia, my least favourite part, was far more griping than this shlock. With the first movie the opening actually has music being transformed into image, here we just see… I dunno, butterflies. Are those supposed to be notes? This is so hack it’s painful.

Pines of Rome

This sequence would have and should have been incredible… if it weren’t for the fact that it’s mostly CGI. I remember this sequence being in the trailer and being really excited to see it in IMAX, and let me try to explain why. Even as a kid I could tell that the animation in Fantasia was better than any other animation I had ever seen. I thought I would witness CGI getting pushed beyond anything I had ever seen before… and who knows, maybe on a technical level it was, however to my eye all I could see was lazy animators using CGI instead of showing off the traditional hand-drawn animation it hints at but doesn’t exploit.

CGI truly is the bane of this film, especially after you learn just how innovative the original Fantasia was.



Rhapsody in Blue

This one is actually brilliant and wonderful and by far the best thing about Fantasia 2000. So of course they shove it 15 minutes into the movie, thus making it forgettable and somewhat obsolete in the eyes of the producers. I just don’t understand why they’ve buried this one, this is the only sequence that manages to truly translate music into image and dares to run longer than 10 minutes. It’s funny and full of heart and I could watch it as many times as I watched the original Fantasia without getting bored.

I actually get angry by how good this sequence is compared to the rest of the film because it makes me realize that the filmmakers were fully capable of recreating the magic of Fantasia and yet for some reason they just didn’t.

Bette Midler

… Really???

The Tin Soldier

Here we have another sequence butchered by CGI. I just can’t tell you how much I dislike mixing CGI with traditional hand-drawn animation. I think both are valid forms of art, don’t get me wrong, but I firmly believe that using CGI in a traditionally animated film is nothing but a crutch – especially when you have films like Fantasia and Pinocchio and Snow White to look at and see the amazing things you can do without CGI and photocopiers and all that bullshit.

Also, this story just kind of bores me. Our hero, the Tin Solider, doesn’t do anything. He just goes along for the ride and ends up back and home. Where’s the conflict? Where’s the tension? This sequence has more McGuffins than that Due South episode that actually labels all the McGuffins!

Mind you, I did like the rats.

James Earl Jones

My favourite intro of the film, firstly because James Early Jones is made of rainbows and awesome and secondly because he asks what everyone watching had been thinking for about 40 minutes: “Who wrote this?”

Carnival of the Animals

I would like this a lot more if it didn’t last less than three minutes. The animation here is incredible. This is the CGI-less animation I crave from Fantasia and it’s great… but again the producers think we’re cats and cut to Penn and Teller as fast as they can.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

I was pissed off when I realized what was happening 11 years ago and I’m pissed off now. They reused The Sorcerer’s Apprentice… THEY REUSED THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE. It’s bad enough that this film is half the runtime of the original, but when you realize that it’s not even all-new footage you come to the startling realization that this film is barely 60 minutes long, about 50 minutes of which is actual animation.

This is the only other sequence that dares to hit that 10 minutes mark. We are essentially watching an hour-long TV animation. And this is the point of the film where you realize just what an uninspired money-grab Fantasia 2000 is. It also doesn’t help that this is one of the sequences from the original I never really liked (probably because there are no women present). Listening to the commentary you come to realize that the producers couldn’t picture Fantasia without this sequence, and I have a hard time figuring out why. Fantasia is supposed to be about visualizing music, watch half an hour of the original Fantasia and you’ll understand that tenfold, and yet the people who made this film thought Fantasia was about a cutesy story involving a mouse.

Now, let’s step back a moment, Walt Disney actually envisioned Fantasia as being a movie constantly being rereleased with a mixture of old and new sequences, so it was essentially a quilt of animation and music… but c’mon guys, that idea clearly got thrown out the wayside around 1940, so don’t try to give that as an explanation. The Disney studios called in this film, and reusing this sequence is ample evidence of that.

Pomp and Circumstance (Noah’s Ark)

I thought I would hate this sequence, this mostly stems from the fact that it’s a bible story and the original Fantasia is so wonderfully secular, but honestly it’s my second favourite sequence. This captures more of the spirit of the classic Disney short than any other part of this damn film. The humour and slapstick here is so subtle and it’s damn near perfect. It still feels a little rushed, like all of this film does, but I feel that mostly because I enjoyed this segment so much I wish it had been longer.

The bad part about this segment is that this is the point where I finally get into the movie and think: “You know what, maybe the rest won’t be so bad.” Then I am immediately told that there’s only one segment left.

So much rage!

Firebird (A.K.A. Ferngully)

This is supposed to be their ode to the final sequence of Fantasia… and you can tell, because it kinda rips it off, utterly and completely. At least this piece has character and, despite the blatant CGI, has incredibly beautiful animation. Here we have CGI used properly in animation, where it helps but does not completely overtake the hand-drawn animation.

The Elk is probably my favourite character in this whole film. Whoever animated that Elk should have won an academy award. Bambi, step aside, this Elk’s eyes show more emotion than you ever did while you were calling for your dead mother.

In Conclusion

Walt Disney set out to make the greatest animated film of all time when he made Fantasia, and he did. Roy Disney set out to make the greatest money grab of all time, and he failed.

Is Fantasia 2000 is completely waste of celluloid? No, Rhapsody in Blue is incredible and Noah’s Ark is cute and Firebird is quite beautiful and worthy of ending the film, but it bothers me how hack this film is and how little the creators cared about what they were creating. They had a chance to continue the greatest animated film of all time… and they called it in.

What makes this movie worse is watching the documentary that comes on the DVD about Musicana, a sequel to Fantasia that nearly began production in the 80s. Just seeing the concept from that film was more riveting than watching Fantasia 2000.

TRON: Legacy

I literally have nothing to say about this movie, but there is something I'd like to say about movies in general. See, the main reason why I stopped updating here is that so many of the movies I saw were in that uncomfortable realm of mediocre and I just couldn't motivate myself to write about them. They weren't bad, they weren't good, they just were.

So, fast forward to 2010, I consider starting this blog up again and saw TRON: Legacy... and it wasn't good, it wasn't bad, it just was. This bums me out more than if it had been a terrible movie.

I just wish producers actually cared about their finished product as a whole, and not just what it looked like.

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Robin Hood

Yes, there are spoilers, read at your own discretion.

I'm not entirely sure why this movie has prompted me to write a review out of all the movies I've seen over the years since last posting here, but I felt like I needed to say something about this movie. I had really low expectations going in and only watched it because I could get it for free from the library and was sort of on a Robin Hood kick from the adorable BBC Robin Hood series.



Aw, he's so adorably anachronistic! That being said, all Robin Hood movies are anachronistic (more on that later).

Really all this movie had to be was not Kevin Costner's version and I was going to love it. Anyway, the version I saw was the Director's Cut, so I'm not entirely sure what was added back into the movie, but it starts with written narration, telling us briefly about King Richard is returning home after fighting in the crusades and how there is an archer in his army named Robin Longstride. Already something feels wrong about this version of Robin Hood. Let's break it down.

1. This film takes place during 1199, but traditionally the story of Robin Hood takes place about a decade earlier while Richard is away and his brother John is abusing his regency, leaving Robin Hood to uphold the name of justice until Richard returns. Now, it doesn't really matter what time frame you put Robin in because he's just a fictional characters and all the story elements are just traditions passed down through the generations. That being said, when all a story is is a series of traditions that you change just to be different, you're telling a different story.

2. This is not our familiar Robin of Locksley, this is a peasant who ends up taking the place of the dead nobleman, Robert of Locksley. This doesn't really bug me, because Robin being a nobleman is one of the elements added to later renditions of the story, but it's yet another familiar element Ripley Scott is striping away from his version of Robin Hood.

So we meet Robin, the oldest soldier in the army, who despite being an archer uses his bow maybe four times in the whole movie. And his outfit is... ridiculous.



I can't really dislike the movie for this, because it's being both accurate to what they actually wore at the time and it is literally the only familiar Robin Hood thing they've kept in the movie. But it's just so... stereotypical... and silly. I'll take Errol Flynn's costume over this any day.

All of this griping aside, the battle sequences in this film are incredible. The storming of the castle at the beginning is slightly underwhelming, but maybe that's because Robin spends most of it in the stocks and it's a chef that takes out King Richard. Lame.

Robin and his merry men (yeah, he's already collected them) break out and go AWOL, in an attempt to reach the coast before the rest of the army. I guess because it will be harder to get a passage across the channel if a few thousand men are hiring ships. This army, by the way, will never be mentioned again. When King John is freaking out about not having an army to fight the French invasion with, I gotta wonder why he doesn't just use this army. And how exactly are the French able to attack England when there's an English army plundering their soil? I guess the English army got drunk and slept in for the rest of the movie.

Instead of reaching the coast though, Robin instead stumbles across one of the most overly complicated Robin Hood plots I have ever seen.

I'm not even going to try to explain it, because I know I'll get something wrong. Needless to say Mark Strong is a villain, real surprise there, who is working with the French while pretending to be Prince John's loyal subject. He ambushes a bunch of nobles who are also leaving the battle to reach the coast in the hopes of killing the already dead King Richard. This is where Robin meets Locksley and the two switch places. Confused yet?

They end up using the King's crown and disguises as lords to make their way across the channel and once all this overly long exposition is over John is King, going to marry a French noble named Isabella, whom his mother objects to and Robin is off to Nottingham with his merry men to return Locksley's sword to his father - though not before Mark Strong recognizes him and decides to pursue him. To keep his cover, I guess, but William Hurt ends up blowing his cover about a half hour later anyway.

But the plot's not important, so let's stop there to talk about why all Robin Hood movies are anachronistic, and why this one really stand out for being so. Thanks to my wonderful Medieval Literature course I've been learning about the evolution of the English language and, well, they didn't speak it back then. They hadn't even gotten to Middle English (think Geoffrey Chaucer) by this point. The peasants spoke Old English, or Anglo-Saxon (think Beowulf) and the nobles spoke Old French. So all the scenes where Isabella is seen to be indignant because she will only speak French to the English just don't make sense to me. They all spoke French!

I do understand the need to have the characters speaking English instead of Anglo-Saxon, and artistically you can get away with it, but when you decide to have a lot of the characters speaking French anyway, why not go that extra mile and actually have all the French speakers speak French? Are you just trying to create more animosity between the French and English? Because frankly it's lazy to rely on a language barrier to show that.

Also, in real life Isabella was 11 when this movie took place (she married John at the ripe and legal age of 12). So... that's gross.

Finally Robin reaches Nottingham where he meets Maid Marion... who isn't a maiden at all, as she's Robert of Locksley's widow. Robert's blind father asks Robin to take his son's place and pretend to be Marion's husband so she doesn't lose the land when he dies. The amount of trust suddenly placed into this perfect stranger is astonishing to me. What's to stop Robin from taking the land and throwing Marion off when Old Man Locksley dies? What's to stop him from raping Marion when she invites him into her chamber to continue the ruse? You don't know this person! Or does he? That gets a little foggy later.

The other astonishing change in this movie is their characterization of the Sherif of Nottingham. He is a complete pussy in this movie, a pussy that does *nothing*. He barely has screen time. He has been replaced as Robin's nemesis by Mark Strong and that's just fucking ridiculous to me. I feel like like they forgot about his character in the first few drafts and only added him as an afterthought. That's like having a Batman movie where the Joker is just a petty thief Batman takes care of in one scene, leaving all the big fights to some evil character the filmmakers made up. You can't do that! You can't strip away every iconic thing about Robin Hood and then still call it Robin Hood!

This is my biggest gripe with this movie. Change all the character names and you will not be able to recognize it as a Robin Hood story. I'm not even entirely sure Ridley Scott likes Robin Hood from the way this story is told. I think he just wanted to make a period piece and the only way he could sell it was by calling it Robin Hood.

To convolute the story even more, it turns out Robin is himself from Locksley, and his father was some... politician? Drafter of legal documents? Stone mason? I have no idea, but about halfway through the movie Old Man Locksley and William Hurt start telling Robin about his father and what a great man he was, so I guess they always knew Robin? I AM SO FUCKING CONFUSED.

So why do I like this movie? This movie that has a confusing and forgettable plot. This movie with underdeveloped characters I don't give a damn about. This movie with no resolution that has an ending tacked onto it just to fool us into thinking it's a prequel to Robin Hood's adventures.

Because the battles are fucking amazing. The sets are detailed and feel real. The weapons look dangerous. Visually it's absolutely stunning and being that I'm on such a medieval kick at the moment I just ate it up. The final battle, at what looked to be the Cliffs of Dover but are apparently some other white cliffs in England, is quite possibly the best battle I've seen in a long while. It didn't look like any battle I've seen in a movie before, and the archer's lined up on the cliffs like that reminded me of the fact that at one time England was known to have the greatest archers in all the world. It's an absolutely terrifying sight to be met with as you land on a beach.

Of course, Robin doesn't stay with the archers, instead he gets on a horse and starts beating people with a hammer. Because when I think Robin Hood, I think of a 45-year-old man on horseback with a giant hammer. And then Marion storms the battle with a dozen children... wait, what? Yeah, that part was weird.

People coming to this movie and wanting to see a story about Robing Hood, or any kind of comprehendible story of any sort, will be sorely disappointed, but those who want to emerge themselves in the medieval world couldn't pick a better movie to watch. You'll be confused, but you'll never be bored.



And remember, if you don't watch it Russell Crowe will find you... and take your head off.











-LS

The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day

Well, I haven't used this journal in a while, but I see no reason for it to go to waste, so I thought I'd make it my home for any video reviews I do for movies, after all a review is a review. Here's something I did a couple months ago. I want to make more video reviews, but I might not use the same format. It took forever to film everything I needed to make this, and I really felt awkward being in front of the camera.



Either way, enjoy!

Smokin' Aces

(This one's going to be in the Feb. 6 issue of The Chronicle)

One million dollars, seven contract killers, one target. The plot of Smokin’ Aces seems simple enough when you watch the preview, and when you pay for your ticket and sit down to watch the movie, there’s going to be a certain expectation for action and violence. And this movie has action and violence in, well, aces.

The movie starts out quietly enough, with FBI agents Carruthers (Ray Liotta) and Messner (Ryan Reynolds) having a friendly chat about the benefits of urine for you skin while on a stakeout. Suddenly they pick up a call about a $1 million hit on Buddy “Aces” Israel (Jeremy Piven).

Suddenly the movie shifts gears and for the next 10 minutes so much information is being shoved down your throat that your head spins. It’s practically impossible to keep up with what’s going on, who’s being introduced and what you need to know.

The fact is, all that information is pointless and didn’t need to be told. All the audience needs to know is that Israel is a rat with seven contract killers coming after him. Why they needed to muddle it up with a complicated back-story and confusing history is a mystery. If you want to catch all the facts, you’re going to have to see it twice – though, who knows, maybe that’s the studio’s marketing plan.

After the mind-numbing exposition comes a section in the movie of these people just trying to get to the hotel where Israel is staying. On the way the violence and unexpected turns begin and it really does become an enjoyable movie.

The characters were all interesting to watch. Some are likeable with their bravado and humour (Ryan Reynolds), others are pitiable with their world spinning out of control around them (Jeremy Piven) and some were so unnervingly creepy that they’ll give children nightmares.

Jeremy Piven was incredible to watch on screen, and if anything, it’s worth seeing this movie just to see him act. That character probably has the most character development (which, to be perfectly honest, isn’t saying a whole lot as most characters weren't in it long enough to deserve character development) and he timed and delivered his lines perfectly.

When all the killers are in place and the real fighting gets underway, the audience is led to expect a climax that never really comes. While the trailers say ‘all hell breaks loose’, it really doesn’t.

Chaos, yes, but certainly not hell.

In fact, the fighting ends quite abruptly. It is as if director Joe Carnahan forgot about the climax.

However, he didn’t forget the climax, he just tried to make it a “thinking man’s” climax. The final 10 minutes of the film provides far too much explanation at once, and frankly, seems rushed and unnecessary. And the plot gaps remain wide and impossible to jump over.

Maybe scenes were missing that explained these impossible things, but the ‘shocking’ twist near the end was stupid. If it hadn’t been there the movie would have been much better.

Still the way the story is finally resolved was pretty well done in itself, despite the unnecessary plot twist.

So, was it a good movie? Yes. But Joe Carnahan tried way too hard to make it into a smart movie, and it’s really not a smart movie by any stretch on the imagination.
-LS

Happy Feet

This is one of the few movies I've seen that have really left me speechless, but I'm not sure that's such a good thing.

At first there's a whole lot of cuteness and singing and I couldn't help but think: "This is 'Penguins: The Musical'!"

But then about half way through the movie it took a very drastic and strange turn. All the sudden it became this big allergory for American politics and I wasn't even sure of half the messages they were trying to dish out; though I did know they involved religious fanaticism.

If you feel like being cheered up, go see this movie. Nothing makes you smile more than a dancing penguin... but I really did feel overwhelmed with all the political messages they tried to incorperrate in this movie.

It was too much and I wish one of them had been left on the cutting room floor. The only political message I thought fit well was about fishing conservation because that's a big problem for both penguins and humans.

But seriously? Did it need so much more? Why not just have singing and dancing penguins!?! Why is that so wrong!?!
-LS

Borat

(I wrote this review the weekend the movie came out, but wrote it for my newspaper and didn't bother to post it. This will be printed in the November 21st issue of The Chronicle)

Borat is the tale of one man’s journey across American in order to meet Pamela Anderson. Along with his trustee producer Azamat (played by Ken Davitian) and a camera, Borat embarks on an unforgettable adventure all captured in one 84-minute documentary.

Only, it’s not technically a real documentary, because Borat isn’t real. He’s a character, originated on Da Ali G Show by Sacha Baron Cohen, whose sole purpose seems to be to find and offend anyone he possibly can.

That’s what the entire movie is, one long line of offensive jokes, and it’s worth every minute.

Cohen is really quite ingenious. By saying terrible things in interviews such as suggesting homosexuals should be killed, he gets others to admit they actually agree with this.

The whole point of Borat, and indeed this movie, is not that he’s offensive and terrible, but that there are people – real people – who are that offensive and terrible.

Of course, some people are still taken aback by Borat, being too closed-minded to take a joke. And then there’s the Kazakhstan government which actually threatened to sue Cohen.

Borat’s very similar to Stephen Colbert in one sense, putting on a façade just to bring attention to how ridiculous some of the things he’ll say in character are.

The movie starts off in a small Kazakhstan village, where the movie audience is introduced to life there, which includes fun activities such as bathing in a rather unique thong and The Running of the Jews (Cohen is Jewish).

Then Borat and Azamat head to New York where Borat watches Baywatch and decides he must travel to California in order to marry the woman of his dreams.

From start to finish this movie will have audiences laughing, even when something truly offensive does happen, such as a group of drunken frat boys admitting they thought slavery should be brought back.

But the movie wasn’t just jokes from start to finish, there were quite a few really sweet moments, dare I say heartbreaking?

When Borat is sitting in the back of the ice cream truck and talking to the camera all by himself, trying to keep a smile on his face even though his documentary is crashing down around him, you can’t help but sympathize with the racist, sexist, anti-Semitic shell of a man.

That being said, the naked man fight is perhaps the funniest thing ever seen on film. Cohen and Davitian are brave, brave men.

And the last scene in the movie will completely blow minds. It’s hard to believe what they did, and most people are theorizing that it was staged.

But, audiences will be the judge.

Go and see this movie, you won’t be disappointed, though you may be traumatized for life.
-LS

The Grudge 2

I'm a pretty big fan of The Grudge and the Ju-On movies, so I went into the theatre with some fairly high expectations.

I wanted to see some creepy ass shit and be scared out of my mind and I was. For the past few nights I keep thinking that Kyako is going to crawl out of the crack of the door on my sliding closet.

But there was something to be desired throughout the whole film. The two different story lines didn't bother me, but all this was going on and there were so many characters to see that you felt cut off from them. I never once really cared about what would happen to them (except for Jake. I always feel bad for children in horror movies) and couldn't even tell you half their names.

The last five minutes of the movie totally rocked my world. There was this great sense of: "Oh man, I GET it." I mean, the movie wasn't confusing or anything, but the ending just tied up everything so well that it made up for some of the less appealing scenes (c'mon, the phonebooth? Not scary OR creepy).

All in all, good movie, go see it if you want a really good scare and don't forget to check out the other movies, because I still strongly believe that they're much better.
-LS

Jackass Number Two

(The following review will be published in Issue II of The Chronicle)

I took great pride in the fact that I’d never seen the Jackass TV show. When all my friends in high school would go on and on about it, I always felt a slight sense of superiority.

Well, I felt it was time to get over myself and go see Jackass Number Two (justifying it by publishing this review). I went out and bought the first movie to prepare myself for the sequel but mostly because it came with a free movie pass.

After all that though, I was still not prepared for what I witnessed. In fact, I strongly believe that having now seen this movie I’m still not sure I’m prepared to see it.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so continuously horrified, offended and sickened. There were two specific scenes (though I’m not going to tell you which in order to keep this spoiler-free) where I did gag and almost threw up.

There was a scene at the beginning where my 250-pound male friend was so terrified at what he was witnessing that he grabbed onto my arm, screaming, until my hand went numb.

But I could not stop laughing.

Even while I was gagging I was laughing – which certainly made matters worse. I can’t even tell you how funny this movie was without saying something extremely cliché such as: “This was the funniest movie I’ve seen all year.” Which, I’m sorry to say, it was.

Comparing this movie to the first one, I have to say the second is faster paced. The stunts/pranks don’t go on for as long, so you never get bored and in between everything are small vignettes of the Jackass boys (Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Ryan Dunn, Chris Pontius, Steve-O, Dave England, Ehren McGhehey, Brandon DiCamillo, Preston Lacy, and Jason "Wee-Man" Acuña) doing something even dumber and funnier than what you just saw.

It never lets up and once we got to the ending I felt a great sense of disappointment that I wouldn’t be able to see any more of the stupidity.

I mean, what else would you call piercing your own cheek with a fishhook and then jumping into water teeming with man-eating sharks (oops, was that a spoiler?) if not sheer, absolute and unbelievable stupidity?

And I loved it! Oh forgive me mom, I loved every terrible second.

One thing I can’t wrap my head around though, is how the Jackass boys actually remain friends. Their favourite pastime seems to be hitting each other in the balls when it’s least expected. I am positive that whenever they sleep in close quarters they lay awake terrified by what their ‘friends’ might be planning.

There were two scenes where their friendship really came into question. Two pranks on Margera and McGhehey were so terrible that they actually started crying.

And may god have mercy on my soul, I was still laughing.

Strangely enough, I still felt my sense of superiority. I couldn’t help but think that not only had I not paid money to watch this, but I was a better human being than these boys in almost every way. From the way they treated each other, to the stupid things they did to themselves and the fact that they let people film it.

I do have to give them kudos though, for the simple fact that although they might be doing this for money, they’re also doing it for the enjoyment of bored people such as me. There are not a lot of people out there risking life and limb (and friendship) just to get people to laugh.

Maybe that isn’t actually something they can be proud of, but I’m still thankful and I’m sure everyone else (not including the humourless) who sees this will be too.
-LS

SNAKES ON A MOTHERFUCKIN' PLANE

Since about March I have been heralding the arrival on Snakes on a Plane. I couldn't wait until August 18th to see this movie, so I got myself some advance tickets to the preview on the 17th. I just got home 40 minutes ago, and I am still psyched.

I was expecting Snakes on a Plane to be awesome, but I am in actually disbelief about how good this movie actually was. I honestly believe that people who weren't all excited about this movie will love it nonetheless.

Is the plot somewhat farfetched and ridiculous? Of course. But they still did it well. The fact that they managed to keep the movie going for almost two hours (with some well-placed cuts back to the mainland and the reactions there) and still have it be exciting and interest was a feat in itself.

Samuel L. Jackson was incredible. Especially at the end with the reaction shots he was giving to Keenan Thompson.

The crowd I saw this movie with was just great. There was hissing and excited screams and applause and rubber snakes being thrown in the air. It kind of had the feel of one of those midnight films that people have seen so many times and enjoy and cherish every moment of it. Hell, maybe this will become a midnight film. There's no doubt that it's already a cult classic and will be a blockbuster.

The theatre was packed and everyone loved it.

You must see this movie. MUST. You will actually keel over and die if you do not go see this movie in the theatre. So go now, to the motherfuckin' theatre and go see Motherfuckin' Snakes on a Motherfuckin' Plane!
-LS

P.S. Check out the article I published: Falling in love with Snakes on a Plane. Scroll down to the bottom of the page.

Superman Returns

I told myself I’d write a review for Superman Returns, and over a week later here I finally am,

Let me explain something first. I hate Superman. I think he’s a dick and far too perfect. But this movie was awesome!

I love how it started after the second Superman film, because I think I would have gone absolutely insane trying to sit through his origin again. We get it, kid from Krypton, planet blew up, kryptonite bad.

I have no idea who this Brandon Routh character is, but he’s incredibly hot and incredibly talented and hey! he’s a Libra! That’s all I need to know. He’s gonna become very famous very soon.

Kate Bosworth was cool, especially in the scene where she got slammed in the head with a steel door – in 3D!!!

Oh yeah, go see the 3D if you can. It really is worth the slight annoyance of having little green lights flash to tell you to put on glasses. My only regret is that the entire movie is not is 3D. Would that really have been so bad?

Kevin Spacey? OMG KEVIN SPACEY!!!

Parkey Posey was brilliant and Kal Penn’s role should have been bigger and the effects were super (no pun intended).

Alas, if only Bryan Singer and his writer crew could have come back for X3. I weep, oh how I weep.
-LS

Banlieue 13 (District 13)

Lovers of kung-fu, sci-fi, France, hot men and/or incredible action sequences, rejoice!

I thought that this movie would be good because it was made by the same people as Ong-Bak, one of my favourite movies. However, two things took me by surprise. 1) This movie was absolutely incredible. I loved every second of it. There really was nothing that I didn't like about it. 2) It was French.

Yeah, like most good kung-fu (ok, so there's no actual kung-fu in this movie, but that's just the best way to describe the fighting in this movie. Because honestly, the fighting in this movie in indescribable) movies you have to sit through sub-titles. 'Course being that I speak French, this really didn't bug me. Though it did amuse me just how much the French say 'merde' and how little Americans are willing to translate it.

Now, onto the actors.

I'm pretty sure that I want to marry and bear the children of David Belle (Leito - the main character). I really don't know what better way to put it. He's completely replaced my love-lust for Tony Jaa (Ong-Bak), though some of that may have to do with the fact that I could actually communicate with David Belle. Good actor, good looking, good hair, good god...

Cyril Raffaelli (Damien) looked like the French love-child of Jason Statham and Vin Diesel, which is amusing because I just found out that Raffaelli was Statham's stunt double in The Transporter. Anyway, he was incredible in the fights and not so bad on the acting plane.

Though really, this isn't an 'acting' kind of movie.

Dany Verissimo (Lola) was great for the 10 minutes she was actually in the movie. She was also the only woman in the ENTIRE movie. I didn't actually notice this until after seeing the movie, which I guess just goes to prove that the movie was so good one doesn't even notice such a grand imbalance in the sexes.

I could probably go on praising this movie for another thousand words, but really one thing needs to be said: GO SEE THIS MOVIE NOW!!!
-LS

The Omen

My first impression was something along the lines of: "Oh man, this is sooooo much better than I thought it would be!"

I never really liked the original. I bought it some time ago and was kinda bored with it, but I recognized the potential and understood why people would like it so much. This remake (and I'm sure people will disagree), took everything that was wrong with the original and made it far, far better.

The story and all the plot-points are the same, but things seem to fit better this time around. The look is better, the effects are better, the acting the same (as in very good in both versions) and those dreams were wicked!

I especially loved Liev Schreiber. I've never really cared about him before, but he was just awesome in this. I really felt for him (and he was really hot... but this is not important!). Julia Stiles was good, but I had a hard time buying her being old enough to have a child. That's not her fault though, that's mostly because I just re-watched 10 Things I Hate About You the other week. Pete Postlethwaite played a priest... again. He was incredible and all, but nothing special or different. Mia Farrow freaked the hell outta me, good work Mia.

David Thewlis is my god, 'nuff said.

Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick (Damien) was nothing special. He just kinda looked confused for the whole movie, but one can't except too much from a five-year-old.

Not to give too much away, but the ending of this movie really touched me. It was the same as the original, but Liev Schreiber was absolutely heart-wrenching to watch.

Go see this movie, now, NOW I SAY!!!
-LS

X-Men: The Last Stand

Mmm... Hugh Jackman... mm... Hugh Jackman as Wolverine... mmm... Hugh Jackman as Wolverine with no shirt on...

...

...

... Uh, right, but in all seriousness folks. *Clears throat*

First and foremost, I hate the title. 'The Last Stand'? That's so fucking corny. But a title does not make a movie. Now there is lot to like about this movie. The acting was superb, the CGI was astonishing, the fights were SO FUCKING AWESOME!!! So those three things made this movie incredibly enjoyable, but there were a few hiccups.

The first 20 minutes or so of the movie were extremely jarring. They were trying to introduce about 30 new characters and five plot lines and it felt very rushed and annoying. For people who haven't read the comics, I think they'll hate the first bit, because they're really not going to know who's who.

Phoenix was awesome. Phoenix's explanation was bullshit. I can understand them not wanting to go down the road of the aliens, but a split personality? Ugh. It just came out of nowhere and felt really - sorry to be repeating myself - jarring.

I hated the music. John Powell should never work again. I hate you John Powell, you ruined almost every dramatic moment!

So, to recap, there's a lot to love, but a lot to hate, which makes this movie the worst out of the three X-Men movie. However I did like this movie. I just don't think many non-comic book people will like it very much.

Now where was I?

Oh right... mmm... Hugh Jackman...
-LS

The Rocket

Before going to see this movie I read a review and it was less than flattering, but I still went to see it because I was in a hockey mood (play-offs and all). I have to say that reviewer had his head up his ass. I really liked this movie. Now I'll admit that it wasn't the best movie I've ever seen, but it certainly was enjoyable and worth checking out (though I suppose it's something that can wait until DVD).

Roy Dupuis was just frakking amazing. There's really little more I can say on that. I thought he was absolutely fantastic, and my father (who's a big Maurice Richard fan) leaned over half-way through the movie to tell me that he'd been cast perfectly. Good on you Roy, I hope you get an award (though, who are we kidding, it'll probably just be a Genie).

I also really liked the fact that they kept the French French and the English English (though being that I speak French I may be slightly biased. I hear some people were rather annoyed at having to read subtitles half of the time).

There were three things that kind of annoyed me about this movie. The simplest one was that I wish there had been more hockey, though I'm glad they didn't sacrifice the other aspect of Maurice Richard's life to show the hockey.

Another thing that annoyed me was Julie LeBreton. I'm not saying she was a bad actress, she was good, though all her role entailed was to look worried once in a while. My problem with her is that she looks 33 (maybe she is 33, I don't know) and the first time you see her in the movie she's supposed to be 17. Fuck! They should have hired someone who was 20 or something, then they could just age them through good ol' fashioned movie magic, because it really takes you out of the moment trying to pretend this woman is 16 years younger. For the record, I also know Roy Dupuis is far older than his role, but his acting was so amazing that I barely noticed it (and even then, only for the first five minutes).

The third, and final, thing was that I felt things weren't explained very well. For someone who doesn't know a whole lot about Maurice Richard, I found myself lost at a few scenes and it would take me a few minutes to figure out when it was and what was going on. Though this shouldn't be a problem for most hockey fans.
-LS

Silent Hill

The simple review to Silent Hill is that I didn’t like it, but what kind of a review is that? After all, I didn’t think that it was a terrible movie; it just fell below my expectations.

This movie was exactly like the game. It looked like the game, sounded like the game, felt like the game, but it wasn’t the game, it was a movie and it seemed like someone forgot that. The dialogue was like chewing cardboard and the acting was… well, it just seemed like the actors were only there for a paycheck.

I’ll give them bonus marks on the makeup and special effects; Pyramid Head was incredible to see.

The plot was acceptable, but it seemed rather small and unimportant. The movie seemed to be putting a lot of it’s stock into being seen as a very pretty movie. They didn’t try very hard with the plot.

Sean Bean rocked, he should have been in more of the movie… and he should have died. It’s unnatural to not have Sean Bean die in a movie.
-LS

V for Vendetta

This is probably the most powerful movie I have ever seen and definitely one of the best movies I have seen in the past year (this is counting 2005). From the previews I thought it would be awesome and being a comic book geek I've been eagerly awaiting it for almost a year. Now normally when something gets hyped up like that there is no way it can live up to your expectations, but this simply went above and beyond them.

The movie's theme is not original, in fact it's basically the sequel of 1984 (both movies cast John Hurt as well, though in completely different roles), but that's not important. I love movies that are all about governments going too far and the people finally standing up to them. It inspires me to believe that we can really make a difference in our world, but I've never seen a movie with this theme that has moved me so much. Yes, it's moved me so much that I have begun to use cliches in order to explain my feelings towards it.

"I laughed, I cried, it moved me Bob."

There were a few things that rubbed me the wrong way, like Natalie Portman's accent. Now, I have nothing against Natalie Portman, I love her in fact. I think she is a great actor and I think she did an incredible job in this movie, but her accent just sounded really fake. I suppose we can't win 'em all... I also wasn't entirely sure if I liked some of the director's (James McTeigue) choices in the fight scenes. In the last action scene with V vs. Creedy and his goons they made it look like a comic book which in turn made it look a little too Matrixy for my taste, but I still think it was a cool scene.

I recommend that you go and watch this movie in the theatres, because it is most certainly worth the money and if you are reading this too late to do that, go and buy the DVD. You will not regret it.
-LS

Hostel

Well, in a word: interesting. In a sentence: Not entirely good and not entirely bad.

It was nothing like I expected it to be, mostly because the preview didn't show anything other than scenes of people being tortured. Basically I expected to sit through a movie entirely composed of disturbing events. The first scene of the movie however was in Amsterdam and involved lots of drugs and sex. I was puzzled, but found it all amusing so I didn't care. That's how the movie continued for about 45 minutes. Lots of drugs and as many tits as one sees in a porn.

Still, I found the movie funny so I didn't mind. Then of course people FINALLY start getting tortured. You don't see a lot of it though, and the only thing that really disturbed me I've actually seen in other movies before. So nothing new, nothing special. I didn't really care about any of the characters until Pax (Jay Hernandez) put a suit on. Suddenly I was invested! It's strange how a nice black suit can make the most boring of people suddenly attractive and bad-ass.

The movie was also really short! I couldn't believe how fast it went by, but being that there were only three main characters and a plot that really only belongs in a short story, I can forgive that. The movie would have really reeked something awful if they'd tried to carry it any longer.

All in all, good movie, but I won't be seeing it in the theatres again.
-LS

Underworld: Evolution

Yay, first review of the year!

Go see this movie. I thought it was going to suck, I didn't even want to see it, by Kat showed some interest, and I think Scott Speedman (we'll talk more about him later) is hot. So we went, and I was pleasantly surprised.

It takes off right where the last movie ends, Selene (Kate Beckinsdale) and her newly acquired puppy Michael (Scott Speedman) trying to find a safe place, Korvin headin' off to kill Marcus, Marcus waking up, etc. And it jumps right into the action. It really feels like a continuation of the first movie, like they are one, like Kill Bill. So if you haven't seen the first one, DO NOT see this one. You will have no idea what's going on.

So, right, Scott Speedman. I am almost 100% positive that it is in his contract to be shirtless for half the movie (both movies, actually). He is absolutely adorable though! I've only seen the man in three movies (Underworld 1, Underworld 2, and The 24th Day), but he always plays the most adorable person. I adore him and his little lost puppy ways ("Love me Selene!").

Also, I always loved how they (Michael & Selene) never had sex or had a mad passionate kiss in the first movie, but was absolutely ecstatic that they had both in the sequel. *Squee*

Now, there were a few things that confused us. The biggest one being: WHERE ARE THEY!?! So I spent all day trying to figure this out. We couldn't figure out how they seemed to be in America in one movie, and then seem to be in Hungary and France in the sequel. Well, in the first movie she looks up Michael's address, it says he lives in Budapest, Budapest is in Hungary. It makes sense!!! But why are they speaking English?

I believe I’ve rambled sufficiently. Movie: good. Scott Speedman: Adorable. Kate Beckinsdale: HOT!!! Plot Holes: There, but easily dismissed.
-LS