tevih Reviews

One Man Band (2005)

vibrant and whimsical!

[10/10 · 6 June 2006]

One Man Ban was an absolutely charming piece of work! The colors were vibrant and whimsical and the designs were cute and caricatured. I loved it from the moment it started until the very end! It's surprising it didn't win the Oscar; it was definitely better than the winner. I suppose the judges couldn't justify giving the same crew Oscar after Oscar after Oscar...

The story is about a pair of street performers locked in a competition to out-perform the other and win the golden coin of a little girl passing by. Their musical dueling was delightful and I can't even imagine directing a film where the whole script is music!

10/10

Artscape (2005)

Spectacular visual odyssey

[10/10 · 6 June 2006]

As far as I know, this was only a traveling exhibit, but if it ever becomes available on DVD (and I have no idea how, given the extremely wide format), it's a definite must-see. The film was a spectacular visual odyssey as the viewer is brought into a world of preproduction artwork from all the Pixar films to date (including June 2006's Cars). In the really large format and accompanied by brilliant sound effects and music, the film is a wonderful showcase for the talented artists at Pixar Studios, and I think demonstrates the amount of hard work by skilled craftsmen required to create such beautiful movies; that it's not just a click of a computer mouse. The presentation was beautiful and almost hypnotic. I sat and watched it three times in a row at the MoMA in Manhattan.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

Long, but spectacularly done

[11 January 2004]

(this review was written by a non-die-hard fan of the series.)

The final segment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy was spectacular, as the acting, directing and visual effects were all awesome! One aspect I couldn't stand in the books was it's length and tendency to drag on, along with its anti-climactic ending. The movie, unfortunately (in my opinion) kept that original feel of the novel. I thought a good 40 minutes, at least, could have been edited out, to make for a more captivating movie experience (the last 20 minutes could have easily been taken out, unmissed!). Just because Tolkien had it that way, does not mean it was perfect! I also thought there was too much sappiness - everybody was crying over everything! There was no machismo or stoicism amongst the hobbit heros. I didn't like that feature either.

I realize the above complaints will not be accepted by Tolkien fans, as they wanted the movies to be exactly like the books. I think that's foolish, as one could put down a book to continue some other time, while if one were to get up and leave a movie theater... A movie is a different medium, and the story is meant to be conveyed accordingly - 3 and half hour movies make my butt sore!!

The visuals were all spectacular, with far-shot epic battle sequence and a flawless blend of CG and live-action - it put the Matrix trilogy to shame with the amount of shots that were inconspicuously CG!!

Overall, I really did enjoy the movie, but for those of you who would rather not sit through the whole thing, leaving exactly 20 minutes early (the whole thing is 3 hours and 20 minutes long) would be perfect - nothing really happens then anyway, trust me.