However, there are a bunch of legitimately interesting movies coming out right now. So much so that I am willing to go to the movie theaters to watch them (though I’ll admit that this decision is assisted heavily by the 2 for 1 deal I can get every wednesday).

One such movie that has just come out here in the UK is Black Swan, staring the ever impressive (to me, anyways) Natalie Portman, and the spunky Mila Kunis who shocked me with an actual acting ability. Classed as a psychological thriller, Black Swan draws you in, and then effectively horrifies you on any number of levels for most of the film. For those too lazy to read the rest of this review, I will leave you with the words I uttered when the credits began to roll:

“Holy shit… Holy. Shit.

Synopsis

Nina, played by Portman, is a ballerina at a large theatre house in the city she lives in (both, as near as I can tell are unmentioned). She’s a dedicated performer that hopes to become the next leading lady in the house’s production of Swan Lake. Her mother, played terrifyingly well by Barbara Hershey, is a failed ballerina that has in turn focused all of her energy, hopes, and dreams into Portman’s career. So much so that their relationship is far from healthy.

As the movie progresses, Nina wins the role but is told that she must be both the White swan – fragile, beautiful, a ‘virgin’ – and the black swan – evil, manipulative, seductive – which is a mental state that Nina cannot easily summon. This is due to her borderline insane home life that has cocooned her in a semi-child-like life and has stunted her sexually. She starts noticing scratches on her back, and starts to see a darker version of her as she walks around or looks in mirrors.

Then you have Lily, played by Kunis, who is for all intents and purposes, Ninas opposite. She’s sexy, she’s carefree, a rebel, and a dancer that doesn’t conform to perfection, but flows naturally to the music and as such can lose herself in the moment. Effectively everything Nina is not. They strike up an odd friendship that just goes all over the place. There is a shockingly passionate scene between the two in the film, but when Nina confronts Lily about it, Lily denies it ever happening. This adds weight to Ninas worries that she’s losing her mind, and her paranoia goes through the roof.

As the movie nears the end, Nina distrusts Lily, thinking that Lily is trying to steal her spot as the Swan Queen. As all this is happening the movie gets more and more surreal, with Nina visually losing her mind, not understanding what is going on or even why. Her personality becomes more erratic, and she’s terrified of what’s happening to her.

The movie climaxes with Nina taking her spot as the Swan Queen – much to the chagrin of Lily. As the white swan, she’s nervous and actually blunders one of the scenes. There’s an altercation with Lily where Lily is killed before the show, but at intermission we find out that she’s not dead at all. This confuses Nina, but only for a moment before she transforms herself into the black swan. She dances ‘perfectly’, transforming on stage into what appears to be a human swan. In actuality no such thing happens, but this is what Nina sees.

The end of the movie is very much the same as the play in which the movie surrounds itself with. She embraces the role, and as she says she was ‘perfect.’ This carries so much gravitas, and caused me to go slack-jawed from the power of its delivery.

What I liked

Oh where to start? I could gush for a very long time about Black Swan, but I’ll do my best to stay at least somewhat objective about it.

The acting

Everyone in Black Swan holds their own. The casting was shockingly well done, with everyone managing to click. Portman, Kunis, Hershey, and Vincent Cassel do an utterly amazing job of making you give a shit about the story. Everyone plays their part perfectly; Portman plays the insecure and fragile ballet dancer that just wants to be perfect; Hershey plays an unstable mother with control issues stunningly; Kunis plays what is probably an easy role for her as the sultry, carefree temptress; and Cassel does an amazing job of playing the manipulative, greedy, semi-antagonist.

The chemistry of everyone on screen is explosive. Each direct relationship works perfectly. Real cudos should be given to Natalie Portman, who does an amazing job throughout the whole film. While all the supporting actors work perfectly in their roles, Portman does a good portion of the movie solo. This is a hard thing for any actor to do, let alone one that must demonstrate a degrading psyche with bouts of paranoia and an emerging split-personality. Tack that onto the fact that this girl is fragile in so many other ways, and you are left with a performance that will leave you awed.

The music

You never really realize where some scores are from until it’s spelled out for you. In this case, pretty much all of the music is pulled directly from Swan Lake itself. The tone and flow of the movie fit unsettlingly well with the scores chosen. While many of the scenes in the movie can hold their own without music, the accompaniment of scores from the ballet do so much to help underscore the joy of some scenes, the adulation of others, and the reserved , crushing sadness of the rest. Whoever set up the score for this movie deserves a medal.

The cinematography

This is probably the first film I’ve watched that does a follow-cam to good effect. A good portion of the film is shot over Nina’s shoulder. This happens more and more the further along the movie you go. The technique is used to brilliant effect, and the entire time it’s happening you feel like you’re literally watching her from over her shoulder. This in turn makes her seem uncomfortable to the watcher. There are scenes that are shot in this method where you can hear Ninas breathing, and mild panic-y grunts as she dances trying not to step out of perfection. Sounds are ramped up during many of these scenes so that you really get a feel for how she’s feeling.

Other shots are done with an experts eye. Mirrors are featured heavily throughout the film, and there are many shots that take full advantage of them. Many of the special effects applied are through these mirrors, and of them, most are subtle. If you’re not looking at the right spot at the right time, you can actually miss some of the more unnerving elements of a scene. Many scenes will have just a moment of something off-putting: a face in the mirror glancing in the wrong direction; a ripple in Ninas skin texture; the off glances; the list goes on.

Symbolism

Oh man. Ohhh man. If I was in university for say, psychology or mental illness or occult studies or something, this movie would have made me cream myself. There are layers and layers to this movie that you could spend hours ripping apart and analyzing. You’ve got the creepy one-on-one relationships, Nina’s youthful room, the scratches, the use of mirrors, the self-visualizing Nina does, the sexy-time scenes, the eyes, the use of blood, and a billion other things that I won’t bother listing.

What impresses me about these though is not so much that they’re strewn throughout the movie, but that they’re applied with such academic perfection, that in many cases you don’t even realize what’s going on unless you’re looking. Yet the fact that they’re there affects your interaction with the movie regardless of your noticing them or not.

The movie operates on so many levels that it actually took me a good while of thinking about it to really start to understand just how much was truly going on. I mean on the surface, the plot is not dissimilar to Swan Lake (how meta), but under that there are layers of emotion and concepts that the movie is trying to convey to the user. The strain of being in Ninas position, the stress her mother puts on her, the pressure she gets from Thomas Leroy (Cassel), this list goes on and on as well. Under all that, the movie opts to explore mor basic human nature and needs. Seriously there’s enough going on in this movie to let you analyze it for days.

What I disliked

Shockingly little ends up in this section. Other than a couple of odd bits of CG use that just didn’t look as polished as they could have been, I’ve got no real complaints about Black Swan. I wish there was more to say about what fell short with this movie, but honestly there’s nothing. The only thing I could think to mention is some people seem to dislike Portman for no reason, and seem to transfer that dislike over to the movie itself. This is a damned shame, but people are allowed to do that.

A word of caution

Black Swan is fucked up. I don’t mean that in a zombie-fest sort of way, or in a Chucky sort of way. I mean fucked up on a truly disturbing and upsetting  level. A common phrase to use for Black Swan is that it is ‘difficult to watch.’ This is very true. Black Swan pulls no punches, and while some movies love to roll around in the field of your personal discomfort (laughing all the way), this movie does not. It makes you uncomfortable because you need to be to really get into this movie. Black swan takes no pleasure in upsetting you, but does it so that you can understand (or at least try to) just how tortured Nina is.

If you dislike movies with a lot of thinking, movies with deeply unsettling themes, or scenes of people being sort-of taken advantage of, you will not like Black Swan. Please trust me when I say that this movie will not be for you, and you will be angry at yourself, the movie, and its creators if you go to watch it.

Black Swan is fucked up. It’s amazingly fucked up, but it’s fucked up all the same.

Overall

I could go on and on about Black Swan. It’s one of the best movies I have seen in a long time, and will easily land itself in my favourites list.

The acting was stunning, the score was perfect, the technical aspects were spot on, and there was enough content to read into that could keep my chronically over-analyzing brain happy for a long time. It’s screwed up, it’s dark, it’s revealing, and it’s a work of art.

9/10

I’ll do my best to follow a format or at least some kind of general flow, but thats going to be hard. The reason is because TRON Legacy sucked. It sucked so very, very badly. At this point feel free to insert whatever sort of ‘your mother’, ‘thats what she said’, or whatever else variable joke you can associate with that statement. I will also state that I haven’t seen the original TRON, but im pretty sure if I had, I’d have probably been pretty upset with what the new release has done.

So with that out of the way…

Overview

TRON legacy, near as I could tell, goes like this: A boy’s father either a: made the original TRON and goes back in to perfect it; or, b: was in the last movie, but was probably not the original creator, and instead goes to make a new version and/or work on the old version.

Anyways, some obvious logic issues crop up and the computer program, CLUE, that Kevin Flynn created betrayed him. Why? Because users were an imperfection, and CLUE was told to create the perfect system. Like I said, basic logic problems. This is logic loops 101 for god sake.

Fast forward roughly 20 years, and our protagonist, Sam Flynn, who happens to be the major share holder of his fathers company but refuses to chair the thing due to his inability to grow up, ends up getting a cryptic message from his fathers old arcade (P.S. his father owned an arcade that somehow hasn’t been torn down or vandalized in the last 20 years. Oh, and it still has electricity). He then gets sucked into the TRON universe where it turns out it was all a master plot by CLUE so he can somehow come into the real world etc. Etc. Oh and the son has to get back to the portal (which is in a totally different place than where he came in for some reason) or he will be trapped there forever (like his dad).

Que the hilarity.

Issues

The premise itself isn’t terrible. Is it oscar worthy? Fuck no, but then again a lot of movies I enjoy can be classed in such a way. It’s a sci-fi movie, and as with all sci-fi movies, I have long since learned to let a lot of shit slide. A lot of utterly bizarre, useless, or outright insane things can and should just be accepted for the sake of the movie. Hell the only time I generally get pissed is when known scientific facts, such as physics, are thrown into a dark cupboard and kept there all night without its dinner.

TRON legacy really pushes a lot of the scientific boundary stuff but it’s an entirely new world so okay fine, whatever you want to do in that universe is well enough. I wont even touch on the fact that it was a linux build, and somehow didn’t crash or require any sort of bootstrapping to get going.

Now, I could create a list of the obvious flaws, of which there are many, such as how come light planes can somehow stall in a world that effectively has no atmosphere. I wont though, because it would both quadruple the length of this review, and there are others who have done a much better job than I could. Google yourself some reviews and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

My major issue is the fact that the acting in this movie, with a quazi-exception for Simon Pegg, was by far the worst acting I have seen in a large scale movie... Possibly ever. Seriously. Everyone is pushing for a single-dimension of complexity, and their character bios can be drawn in goddamned smelly-marker.
Like so:

• Kevin Flynn, Father, ambitious when young, hoisted by own petard when older. When old becomes a zen hippy who will sacrifice himself for his son to make up for fucking off for 20 years. Make sure he says some obviously hippy things, like “harshing my mellow” or something, but make sure they are all delivered painfully.
• Sam Flynn, Son, a renegade that doesn’t want to grow up nor take over his fathers company due to resentment. Basically trys to emulate the new Kirk, but without the acting flair or joy.
• Quorra, Girl, obvious love interest, naive but a good fighter. Must be rescued at least once during the movie. Also, she is an obvious plot device.
• CLUE. The computer program that, despite being born in the single, most complex code-base in the universe, takes his initial instruction literally, which makes him an asshole for some reason.
• Rinzler, the eventual turn-coat, who does so for reasons that don’t actually make sense, even in the goddamned TRON universe. Deus ex machina in a helmut. Make sure he looks like evil Stig.  - Before anyone bitches, yes I know that he used to be a a good guy, blah blah blah, but his reverting back makes no sense.
• Zeus, a super flamboyant David Bowie knock-off who has read Alice in Wonderland and has upsettingly dark gay fantasies with with Mad Hatter. Oh also he has to turn on the users. Give him a cane, every flamboyant turn-coat has one.
• Everyone else, fucking useless.

If you take these characters and the plot points mentioned previously, you will get the gist of the new TRON.

More issues

I wouldn’t be so angry about the new TRON if it didn’t look so damned cool. Seriously, the movie is a visual orgasm of technology. The fact that it looks so good, whilst the acting was so terrible points out just where all the money was spent. Well, not all of the money. The rest went to Daft Punk, who did their absolute damnedest to make up for the the terribly story the only way they know how: fresh beats.

The music really does need some special mention here, because it was really, very good. Not as Daft Punk-y as I was expecting, but very good regardless. It is a soundtrack, and one I will seriously consider purchasing. Sadly, this will cause people to ask me about the movie and how boss I thought it was, which will lead to a similar tirade to the one you are reading now, and will end in some awkward silence.

Summary

TRON Legacy is a super-cool tech demo put to a bitchin’ soundtrack that was ruined by the addition of actors.

3/10  (7/10 if someone can make a cut that doesn’t have any actors in it)

Writern Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber, 500 Days of Summer is shockingly not about global warming. No, the story revolves around two people: Tom Hansen (played by the under-rated Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Summer Finn (played by equally under-rated Zooey Deschanel). Two people who met almost by chance, talked, dated, broke up, met again, and all the highs and lows that happen throughout.

Tom works at a greeting card company, where he thinks up slogans for the company, and prototypes cards. Summer comes into the company as the bosses new assistant. Though Tom tries to fight it, he is drawn to Summer for reasons he can’t explain. You see Tom has always believed in “the one” and felt quite certain that Summer was it. Summer on the other hand doesn’t really believe in boyfriends or any of that “fate” stuff.

Tom falls in love.

Summer doesn’t.

Within the first five minutes, you are introduced to every major character, and thrown right into the darkest part of the film. 2 minutes after that, you are thrown into the lightest part. It’s almost mind-boggling, but it holds itself together beautifully.

What I Liked

I am a huge fan of how this film was shot. amazingly simple yet strong shots really helped bring home. simple things like Tom on the Bus, freaking out about the song on his iPod, to he and Summer sitting in the Diner at the start of the movie, to the single best example of a movie breaking into a full-out choreographed song and dance number. Everything about the filmography had me, director Marc Webb does nothing less than stellar in the direction of this movie. The transitioning between scenes gave it an almost Tarantino feel, except for you know what the hell is going on. I loved the subtle use of colours and foliage changing that was a small foreshadow of how the next scene was going to play out.

I loved loved loved the use of typography in this movie. Now sadly, I’m not so much of a typophile to be able to tell you what font specifically was used, but I know it’s one I’ve seen, and it worked so very well for this movie. The transitioning between days was made that much better by the simple numeric counter that was featured (in said font, of course).

And lets not forget the music. From the Smiths to Feist, this movie ranges all over the place. What really impressed me though was how well the music actually went with each scene. Some of the musical choices might have been considered a little out of the way, but they really helped bring in the subtly of feeling that the audience needed. The soundtrack to this movie will be getting into my iTunes one way or the other, I can assure you of that.

I’m also going to give a shout out to whoever built the sets and/or found the locations to do the shots. There are some stunning locations in that movie. So much so that it made me want to crawl into the movie just so I could look around in wonder.

What I Disliked

Though I love Matthew Gray Gubler, his use in this movie was woefully contrived. He was quite literally “the friend” that you needed to fill in scenes or to say specific lines. His character, though enjoyable, was one-dimensional, and little was done to really add to it. His one moving line was too little too late to save the character.

The ending. Or, at least I should say the near ending. When Tom and Summer meet up and talk about what’s happened to them, I felt a little annoyed that Tom let Summer get off so lightly. Maybe I’m just a bitter person, but I can honestly say that I wouldn’t have been as big of a man.

Oh wait, yes, the actual ending. I don’t want to spoil anything here, but the name choice at the end of the film. Really? You actually went for that? Not even the least bit ashamed at the contrived selection? No? Well you should be.

Overall

I am a big fan of this movie. I may even pick up the DVD and add it to my very small pile of “DVDs I Can Be Snobby About Because I Love Them So Much” That’s right, I have that pile, and I am snobby about the movies in it. Don’t get me started on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, we’ll be here for a while.

If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth the drive and the money. I would know, as I am a semi-extreme case. It’s funny, it’s emotional, it’s simple yet complex. It’s everything I wanted out of a movie, and it was delivered to me in spades.

P.S. Thank you 500 Days of Summer for not using Hand-drawn block text for your movie. There seems to be a trend with indie films and that damned font-face.

8.5/10

UP sits right under Wall-E on the awesome scale. It’s not as epically beautiful, nor is it quite as artistically stunning, but it’s pretty damned close.

UP is a story about multiple characters, some present, some painfully absent. Carl Frederickson has always wanted to be an adventurer. As a young, round-faced child, he watches his childhood hero (Charles F. Muntz) on the big screen in wide-eyed wonder.

On his way home, he comes across Ellie, a fellow adventurer in training. We are then treated to a 20 minute montage of love and life with Carl and Ellie with all of the joys and heartaches that come therein. The montage ends with one of the saddest scenes I have ever seen Pixar create. Carl sitting, alone, in a darkened funeral home. I had to choke back tears, and this was only 10 minutes into the film.

We are then presented with is now a typical morning of Carl, placed to classical music, exquisitely timed, and a horrible scene of what will probably end up being me when I’m old. After a shockingly adult altercation between Carl and a construction worker, Carl is forced to go to an old-age home. The day he was to leave, he opts to lift his house out of the ground and finish an adventure Ellie and He had planned to do for years.

That’s when he discovers Russel on his porch.

Gushing Time

I cannot explain just how amazing and subtle much of the dialogue actually is. Listening to Carl talk to Ellie under his breathe is both close to home to all of us (you all know you talk to people who aren’t there) and painful. Carl’s underlying guilt through much of the film is subtle, but there, and it really adds depth to what would otherwise be a straight-forward kids adventure movie.

Russel is another twist for Pixar. In Finding Nemo, we were presented with a single-parent scenario. Something that is usually avoided in kids movies. In UP, Russel has a father that works to much, and a step mom that he calls by first-name. This throws of Carl as well as much of the audience. He puts on a brave face and wears his love and hope on his sleeve when he talks about his dad, but even his pain cannot be properly masked. It was heartbreaking listening to him talk about his family, and I’m sure most of the kids that see this movie won’t really appreciate the depth to which the writers went to.

Russel also has some of the most damningly honest dialogue in the entire film. Listening to him complain about walking is something that every grown up remembers saying, and most parents have heard some sort of variation therein. He’s simple and Carl can’t stand him, but like most children they can’t help but grow on you.

Kevin the Bird and Dug the (talking) Dog are both used to the best of their ability. Neither are over-played, but are used with the flare and understanding that I’ve come to expect from Pixar. Dug provides some of the best lines I have ever heard from an animated film including (but not limited to):

I have just met you and I love you.

Squirrel!                  Hi there!

I was hiding under your porch because I love you.

The visuals in UP are fantastic, if not slightly stylized. That’s Pixars way though. All of their movies tend to have their own stylistic flare while retaining the properties that make the movie inherently Pixar-ish. Fun fact: The balloons were animated by program, because it was impossible to animate them by hand. The same goes for Kevins feathers, and Russel’s hair. It took them over a year to figure out the system for the Balloons alone. That is dedication, and I love Pixar all the more for going that far for a convincing story.

The only thing I could possibly complain about is that the actual storyline in and of itself is somewhat weak. Thankfully there is so much more going on around that initial storyline that it doesn’t even matter. So many other stories are unfolding around it that it more than makes up for any weakness found in the main line.

Partly Cloudy

I have to give a shout-out to the opening short: Partly Cloudy. A story about where babies come from, using the classic stork methodology. The storks fly to clouds that produce baby puppies, kittens, and people. They are then bundled up and flown out to awaiting homes.

But what about the babies that that no one really thinks of? Baby alligators, Sharks, and Porcupines? They have to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is the Gus the cloud. His partner, Peck the Stork, is entrusted in carrying all of these dangerous babies to their awaiting homes.

I cannot describe just how funny this short is. Theresa and I were alternating between laughing out loud -borderline obnoxiously laughing- and crying and convulsing from the levels of funny that we were getting from the film. I really wish you could watch it online, but it’s a little hard to find.

Overall

Up is magical. It’s stunning, It’s funny, and It’s got appeal for any and everyone, regardless of age. I plan to own it when it comes out, and I will make sure my children watch if both when they are young, and when they get older. There is so much to appreciate in this film that you simply must watch it at different stages of your life.

If you miss the opportunity to see this in theaters, you are doing yourself a grave injustice. I happened to see it in 3D, but I’ve been told that it is just as magical without things pretending to pop out of the screen. You simply have to see this film. There’s really nothing else to it.

It’s not as stunning as Wall-E,, which is the best animated film I have seen to date, but if Wall-E, was a 100 on the scale, then UP is a 98.

9/10

What to say about Blindness? I went and saw it with Theresa when It came out in Canada (October 3rd, if anyone is wondering). We had seen previews for it months ago, and the idea intregued us both. At that point it fell off the map to anyone who wasn’t actively trying to follow it.

Apparently it was shown at the Cannes film festival to mixed reception. Reading reviews online does little to ease ones trepidation towards the film. It seems that Blindness is a movie that has those who love it, and others that feel that it was “like looking into the sky and having sand poured into your eyes.” I’ve had to think long and hard about what I really felt about it.

It had all the makings for a great film: a good premise, a fairly strong cast calling, some impressive cinematography, an excellent musical score, and a fair amount of detail. So what happened?

The Good

Storyline

A neat storyline adapted from SOMEONES NOVEL, Blindness takes place in current day earth, where a strange and unexplained illness starts spreading. People start going blind – seeing white – even though they are otherwise perfectly healthy. Those afflicted are soon spirited away to an abandoned asylum to be quarantined. The main male lead, “Doctor” according to IMDB, is one of the afflicted and as he is carried off, his wife (Doctor’s Wife) dives into the truck. As the movie progresses and more and more people lose their sight, the Wife maintains her sight despite everyone around her being infected.

The story overall moved me in both good and bad ways. It depressed me considering how accurate some of the actions in the story really were. It scared me to know that people could and would react in the ways that they did. It inspired me that some could act with the courage required to hold people together.

Music

The musical score is subtle and at many tines haunting. It complimented most scenes and added that extra level that really drove things home. Some of the more disturbing scenes were really made that much more upsetting by the soundtrack and actual lack of music. I cannot explain further without giving things away, but trust me when I say that Blindness stepped over some lines with what they did.

The Bad

Plot devices

Everywhere. Every-frigging-where. If you know what you’re doing, you can pretty much read how the movie is going to go… mostly. If you read into scenes and see what’s going on, you know what will happen later on. I called more things than I really wanted to, which is always depressing. TV with a guy on it? Yup. Only person who can see finds scissors? Yup. The only person that can see finds a grocery store’s back room? Yup. The list goes on.

The plot devices were easily the second most annoying thing with the entire movie. They seem to be almost overly obvious sometimes, seemingly thrown in your face, just in case you missed it. Other seeming plot devices are brought up for no other point than to tie things back to some random page in the novel. Very depressing.

RANDOM SHIT WHAT THE HELL

What’s a good idea when your wife is the only person that can see – as far as you know of – in the whole world? Sleep with some random blind girl for no reason whatsoever! That’s right, random affair that is basically required so that Doctor and Wife can reconcile later. Let’s sing on the radio. Lets have random naked people. Lets Include shower scenes for no real reason. Let’s have more naked people walking down abandoned highways, making sure that they’ve never once thought of personal grooming.

I guess this also falls mostly into plot devices, but they were just so damned random that I feel they earned their own section.

Narration

The random and late introduced narration made me want to rip my ears off. Not only was 99% of it utterly pointless, but the other 1% of it felt rather self-indulgent and utterly fake. It was easily the worst aspect to the film by far. I don’t even need to explain further; the Narration was atrocious.

The meh

Cinematography

I want to say that all the shots and all of the effects used were applied with a delicate hand, accented the scenes, and were not in the least bit self-indulgent. I would like to say that, but some of the shots were… difficult to figure out, some of the shots totally done for the sake of the “sweet effect” and even more shots were difficult to follow.

Some of the effects were impressive – the kid walking into the table – was impressive, and I liked the use of a washed out colour-palette; it helped with the general bleak feeling to the entire movie. The over-use of the “blurry scenes” was hard to take.

The Acting

Some of the actors were good (Julliane Moore,Alice Braga), some were alright (Mark Ruffalo, Yusuke Iseya), and some that should have been good fell on their faces (I’m looking at you Danny Glover). Some of the characters felt so impressively stereotyped that you can’t help but cringe. Julliane Moore – The Doctor’s Wife – does a fantastic job in the movie; an important fact given that the entire more is basically centred around her trying to support everyone.

Overall I liked it, but not as much as I should have. It had all the fixings for a great movie, but fell on its face somewhere down the line.

6.5/10

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog started out free on the website, though only for a very limited time. After that it was whisked away to iTunes where those of us too slow on the uptake were reprimanded by having to pay 2 dollars an episode (totaling an impressive six dollars). Trust me when I say that it was easily the best six dollars I will have spent this year, bar none.

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is about “Billy” a bad buy – Dr. Horrible – trying to make it into the big leagues. He’s also in love with a girl from the laundromat – Penny – and has his own nemesis – Captain Hammer. The three episode arc shows how Dr. Horrible tries to get into the league, hands the girl of his dreams over to his nemesis, and just how far he’ll have to go to be recognized as a true super-villian.

Did I mention he video blogs at the start of the episodes? Fantastic.

Neil Patrick Harris was probably the best casting job ever performed by man-kind, as he plays Dr. Horrible so well that you can see that though he’s evil, he’s actually a pretty nice guy. Nathan Fillion – ever present/utterly brilliant in the Joss Whedon universe – is given the job of playing Captain Hammer, the arrogant super hero that beats the hell out of Dr. Horrible at almost every meeting. They both have feelings for Penny (Felicia Day) who is one of the most next-door-girl cute I’ve ever seen cast, and plays penny so well that I’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who could fit the role better.

I’m trying to figure out if she dyes her hair from brown to red, or from red to darker red. I think I see roots, but I just can’t tell.

I fell in love with the series literally from the opening of the first episode. Great intro music to some quick credits, followed by one of the best evil-doer laughs ever recorded to film. You could bottle that and sell it on shelves it was so damned good. The rest of the story followed the same amount of effort and brilliance, dimming only for the “Bad Hoof” songs, which didn’t really do it for me. I’m going to have to dub “Freeze Ray” as the best song out of the entire show. It’s just so damned cute in it’s own twisted way.

Find a way to see this people; Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is 43 minutes of pure gold. I paid 6 dollars for it, and I honestly feel like I got a great deal out of it.

10/10

Lars (Ryan Gosling) is a recluse who, as recluses tend to do, hides himself from the world. He shuns the advances of a girl from work (Kelli Garner), and avoids any sort of situation (i.e., breakfast) with anyone. After a bit of a confrontation with his sister-in-law (Emily Mortimer), he gets a Real Doll, Bianca, from the web and claims he “met her on the internet”. She is wheelchair-bound, but very sweet. Lars treats her like she’s completely real and the town decides to go along with it to help Lars through whatever psychological delusion he is having. As a result the whole town bonds with Bianca, and helps Lars come to terms with how the world works.

And no, he doesn’t sleep with Bianca.

I found it surprisingly entertaining, though a bit run of the mill. I saw everything coming before it happened including the ending. I’m not saying that’s bad by any means because it was a very sweet movie, and made me smile for a good while after watching it. It’s just a nice movie to watch, especially when you’re feeling a bit of a recluse yourself.

It has a strong feeling of coming of age, but by throwing it through such a different light it allows you to appreciate it without having the cast all 28-year-olds pretending they’re 17 at the prom. There are deeper moral lessons to be found within the film, if you’re willing to look for them; the largest and most prominent is the idea that you should help those you love, regardless of what that means. There is a scene where Gus and Karin argue about going along with the Real Doll that I just have to quote here:

Lars Lindstrom: You don’t care.
Karin: We don’t care? We do care!
Lars Lindstrom: No you don’t.
Karin: That is just not true! God! Every person in this town bends over backward to make Bianca feel at home. Why do you think she has so many places to go and so much to do? Huh? Huh? Because of you! Because – all these people – love you! We push her wheelchair. We drive her to work. We drive her home. We wash her. We dress her. We get her up, and put her to bed. We carry her. And she is not petite, Lars. Bianca is a big, big girl! None of this is easy – for any of us – but we do it… Oh! We do it for you! So don’t you dare tell me how we don’t care.
[walks into house and slams door]

Something about this scene just touched me. It’s so strong and so honest that it endeared me to Karin for the rest of the movie.

The music (and in many scenes the stark lack of) was amazing, and I’m trying to get my grubby little hands on it. It’s been a while since I’ve seen music that suits a movie so well. Ryan Gosling gives an admirable performance as Lars, and kudos must also go to Karin, his sister-in-law. The cinematography was top notch considering one of the actors wasn’t even real. Despite this setback, scenes are still filled with the emotion needed to carry it through with flying colours.

I have to complain about two things. The first is the rest of the cast: everyone else seems very cookie cutter. The older brother who snorts at the idea of his brother having a delusion; The awkward-cute girl that likes Lars; the work pervert; the black girl; the knitting circle; etc. Lars and Karin are the only two characters with any real character. My second annoyance is with the multiple instances of montages. At least four happen throughout the film, and I couldn’t help but let it bug me.

Watch this movie. It won’t win any awards, but it’s a solid movie from every aspect. Good story, great acting, fantastic music, and a warm fuzzy moral in the end.

7.5/10

I apologize in advance, but in order to review this movie, there are going to be spoilers.

The Nines is a 3-story story about Gary/Gavin/Gabe – “G” from here on in – who are all portrayed by Ryan Reynolds. The stories seem to be roughly fitted around each other (the first two far more than the last) and as they unfold they have the repeating themes of “intro, progress, get weird, get meta-physical, world-end” which was cool the first time, and then it just got taxing. From what I gathered the whole thing revolves around “G” and he recreates his universe repeatedly.

I want to say that John August pulled off some really cool meta-physical shit in this one. I want to but I can’t. To be honest they went so left field with the ending that I just couldn’t take it in. At first I figured it out as a “dude has multiple avatars in Real Life” sort of deal. This thought process makes sense right up until the very end when it is revealed that “G” is actually similar to Q from Star Trek. He creates and re-creates the world on a whim, but got so involved that he forgot that he was even doing it. So I guess you could say that if Q was addicted to Real Life – Or Jesus being addicted to World of Warcraft -, it would be something like this.

I liked what they were trying to do by putting the stories in a loose sort of connected mesh. They didn’t pull it off all that well though, which is the real shame. Too much of it felt jumpy or almost B-Movie. The reuse of the same actors in different roles was a nice touch to help in the attempted vision, but in the end it falls short of the goal. Hope Davis could have been removed from the movie as she contributed very little and felt like a weak character overall. It feels almost as they threw her in because they needed some character to fill in the creepy gaps that were left.

The acting in the movie were fairly strong throughout the movie, which is good because without it this movie would have completely failed. Ryan Reynolds and Melissa McCarthy do their jobs fantastically and manage to repeatedly prove that there was a connection between both the characters (in all of their incarnations) as well as the actors. It made for some great dialogs between the two, and helped the movie immensely.

The music in this movie really impressed me. The main theme is a haunting piano tune that comes up throughout the entire film. It’s a subtle addition and helps bring mood to a lot of scenes that would have been empty without it. I’m going to try and find a copy of the soundtrack as soon as possible and listen the crap out of it.

Rent it, I guess. I wasn’t very impressed with it, but I wasn’t unimpressed either. I felt it was a bit jarring with it’s movements, and the ending came too far out of left field for me to appreciate. I understood it, but I didn’t think it fit. It was very deus ex machina, and that bugged me.

5/10

The movie Juno is about one Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) and Paulie Bleeker (the ever master of awkward pauses, Michael Cera) and their joint child-making. The movie takes place during the nine months of Juno’s wonderful adventure through pregnancy, and her interaction with the adoptive couple Vanessa and Mark Loring (Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman).

Admittedly, not the most accurate portrayal of someone being pregnant that I’ve ever seen, but the movie uses the pregnancy as more of a means to an end rather than the focus. Juno (the girl) is apparently unable to carry on 80% of her conversations without busting out a (admittedly very funny) one-liner. Putting that aside, the rest of the movie is quite solid and worth every penny I spent on it. Juno maintains a good pace and has fantastic closure at the end, something that I have found lacking in recent films that I have viewed.

I do have to say though that I’m pretty sure the movie was written with Michael Cera in mind. No one else could have played his character better. I am sad to think that he has unfortunately type-cast himself to being “the awkward guy”, what with doing it so well. Shockingly though, his roll is only a minor one which I appreciate because it allows the focus of the film not to be distorted with his role.

The other thing that I have give mention to is the soundtrack to this movie. It’s a solid collection to begin with as it sports such artists as Belle & Sebastian, Kimya Dawson, Buddy Holly, and even Sonic Youth. What makes the album that much better is that after you have seen the movie you can tie so many of the songs to cute moments within the film. That is really what makes this soundtrack shine, though it’s pretty solid standing on its own and it even offers a cover of one of the songs direct from the movie featuring Michael and Ellen themselves on the guitar and vocals. It’s cute, if not a bit off sound-wise.

Totally worth seeing, and I implore everyone to watch it. It’s one of those movies that will mostly go under the radar from daily viewing, but is an complete and utter gem. Solid acting, cute story, and a wonderful soundtrack make this movie absolutely worth it. I plan to own it the second it comes out onto DVD.

9/10

A little slow and pointless off the bat, it feels very typical for the first 20 minutes or so. Once it has been established that, yes, he is the only guy around, it gets to the good parts. I shouldn’t paint it so negatively, because I Am Legend does a wonderful job of building tension. I mean, you know shits gonna go down, and you know it’s going to be hardcore. The movie refuses to throw the viewer into it right off the bat though, and I have to respect that.

Suffering from flashbacks, Robert has a personal mission that seems to be the only thing really keeping him from going utterly insane. Packed with near silent and toned down shots where nothing is said (there’s no one to talk to!) that i felt were used very well in some instances, and felt awkward in others. On that note, a lot of the shots were exceptionally well done, and really helped set the mood. There were so many times that I thought something was going to burst out, B-movie style, and the film refused to go there. Way to go on that.

Will Smith does a very good job playing his role, and I can honestly say that he was a very good pick for the film. I can also say that he was super ripped, and scared the hell out of me with his rugged, survivalist, man-body. Girls will like this movie simply for him doing chin-ups. Guys will love the everything else.

Though I am sure it was unintentional the Alpha Male in the movie reminded me very much of Grendel in the CG’ed version of Beowulf. I’m not sure how that worked out, but sadly it really hurt my perception of the character and made it hard to take that part of the movie seriously. I’m sorry, but the hilarity I found in Beowulf really hurt the team on this one, and I can’t really hold it against the film itself and so I tried to avoid that when making my marking decision.

I will say (without giving anything away) that the ending really irked me. I can’t explain why without giving away the movie, but I got to be honest, I hate when that exact situation occurs. If or when you see the movie, you’ll at least know what I’m talking about. All in all though, I cannot rag on the movie that much. It is what it is, and that’s about it. It won’t win any awards, but it’s a good movie in the end.

7/10