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gaiafaye
Reviews
The Cat in the Hat (2003)
Waste of time!
The only good thing about this unfunny dreck is that I didn't have to pay for it. I saw it for free at college. And if a college student can't find humor in something that was free, it's hopeless.
Stale acting and poor jokes cannot be masked by an excellent, yet bewildering set design (that goes out of its way to market Volkswagon Beetles). I don't know what Michaels Myers was doing in this movie, but I have never seen anything more depressing. This was nothing more than a blatant effort to capitalize on the previous success of the Grinch (which has its opponents, but I enjoyed it very much). It's difficult not to sit through this failure and wonder what better projects were passed over to fund it.
You want a funny Seuss adaptation? Go with the Grinch.
The Ring Two (2005)
Another subpar sequel.
Fresh from seeing The Ring Two, I can say that I was disappointed. This time, the problem has very little to do with the spooky tape seen in the first installment. A lot of what it did have to do with seemed pretty random and just thrown in to scare you. That's all well and good for a horror flick, but if everything was tied in together to somehow make sense in coordination with the first film, this movie would have been better. It also would have helped if what did tie in with the first film didn't ruin what was initially creepy, for instance, the issue of Samara's parentage. A lot of the dialogue was odd or awkward, especially Rachel's bit of advice for Aidan in the beginning. There was very little gradual understanding; the characters just lay it out for you. I won't spoil the ending, but I personally didn't like it. The special effects were excellent, but I've always been more for plot that shiny visuals.
Overall, I won't say that The Ring Two was bad, but it didn't live up to its predecessor. I'd recommend seeing it at the matinée price, or just waiting to rent it.
Gitaroo Man (2001)
Awesome game.
I first saw Gitaroo Man when I went to Anime Next, and one of the many people packed in the hotel room had brought the game and their PS2. It looked like so much fun, that when I was home I bought a copy off of Amazon.com. Gameplay is pretty simple-- you basically play along with the music-- but it's also very challenging with the rhythms and attack button sequences. The storyline is sparse, but the awesome music makes up for it. Each battle is done in a different music style: three different rock variations, a techno-pop piece, reggae, percussion, etc. I would recommend this game to anyone who is into music or loves games that are just plain fun. The only other way to describe it would be "very Japanese". And you either know what I mean by that, or you don't.
Elephant (2003)
Not Impressed
Okay. I looked at the cover of this movie and saw that it got recognition at the Cannes Film Festival. I thought to myself, "Well, this should be intriguing. Surely films don't win awards if they're not at least somewhat good." And I was very wrong. That'll teach me.
I understand that, basically, we are treated to a very normal day in high school, only to be disturbed as to how it could take such a horrible turn. That said, let us begin my nitpicking.
First off, perhaps other schools are like this, but in my high school (which I attended 1999 to 2003, so I'm not relating to out-of-date experience here), kids were supposed to go to class. Kids were admonished and interrogated if they were seen wandering the halls. Kids were not allowed to sign themselves out of school without some sort of official note and it had to be done 24 hours in advance. But, again, this was just my school, so I suppose at a larger school, these would be different.
BUT the larger size of this school sure produces a plethora of amazingly intriguing characters. You want a REAL high school? There are plenty of real people in high school that don't have eating disorders, aren't insecure pariahs, aren't so into the beauty of life they take a picture when it's obvious they're in danger, and actually panic when the school is being attacked. The only average people in the movie were the boyfriend and girlfriend, who actually seemed to be afraid. Average is majority, so if the filmmaker wanted to subdue us with the normal pace of life and then disturb us, he could have shown us more average people, who might have actually had real conversations with other people, like people usually do. Average people would've actually scrambled out the windows too, or shown horrified emotion when speaking to their father about what was happening at the school.
Now we come to the pacing, one of the more debated factors of this movie. I suppose this was to give us the view of how the characters were just leading their everyday lives, the ho-hum of yesterday and tomorrow, but.. Come on, people. Frankly, I was so bored of people walking down halls and having brief conversations that I wasn't shocked at the ending; I was grateful that something was happening. Granted, I was still disturbed and wondered what would bring people to commit such atrocities on innocent people, but a filmmaker still could have garnered that reaction from me with a little less real-time school expeditions.
This is not to say I saw no value in this movie. I know that perhaps we weren't treated to character development because we are not privy to personal relationships with real life victims of school shootings, so it would be unrealistic to have us relate the emotions drawn from this movie to the attacks we hear about in real life. Also, while watching it, my friend pointed out that the point of view we get is akin to that of a video game, such as the shoot-em-up one of the shooters is playing on a computer at one point in the film. This can also explain Alex's last action towards Eric; he was just getting rid of a competitor.
And, to bring up a more feminist point of view, I did not like how the female characters were either awkward weirdos, irritating bitches with eating disorders, or a possible teen mom. At least Eli was kinda cool and John was nice guy just trying to deal. I couldn't relate to any of the female characters. And to go further, if you all are looking for a *real* representation of high school life, you'd need average people who aren't aesthetically perfect.
This had a lot of potential, and did have some interesting parts, but all in all, it is a poor film.
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
To put it simply, this movie is awesome!
Granted, I will admit to not be an avid comic book reader, but I do have some Spider-man knowledge from the cartoon (the 90s one, not the MTV one) and things I've picked up here and there. Thus, I'm obviously not going to be very nitpicky with Spider-man (unlike I am with Harry Potter. Er... wrong movie.)
Anyway, this is gonna be short, since I don't feel any need to defend such a great movie. Awesome action, great introspection, some lovely poignant moments, good laughs, and if you do have some background you may catch some subtle and not-so-subtle hints here and there about what the next installment may contain. Some people apparently didn't enjoy the ending, but I loved it; it balanced out the first movie's conclusion perfectly and left me completely satisfied.
In short, don't miss this one! Totally worth the price theaters are charging these days for evening showings. Seeing a matinée is a great bargain! Go! Go now!
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995)
Not horrible, but not good.
Yes! I am a former Power Rangers fan! I ADMIT IT!! You'll all have to admit it to yourselves one day. But, anyway, this movie isn't completely awful, especially if you were into the show. Or if you like to do MSTs with your friends. ;) Especially about how no matter how the rangers move they make little "whoosh!!" noises. LOL Sigh, I'll never get tired of that. Yeah, the movie itself is a little cheesy, but it was made for kids, don't forget. Though I won't protest this being on the 100 worst movies list on IMDB..
Sadly, I once read an MST of an early script somewhere online that was actually a little better than this.
Beowulf (1999)
A great movie... for a laugh.
We screened this movie in a club as an example of how classic literature can become twisted into some of the most awful movies of all time. Just the fact that the back of the box proudly proclaimed the plot to be set in the "techno-futile" future should have been enough of a hint. I think that word describes the movie itself, because no matter how much technology they tried to use to save this movie, the effort was completely futile. Not to mention that our club advisor told us that it allegedly couldn't get a distributor for two years.
This cinematic failure is littered with cheesy, cliche dialogue that's worse than angsty teen poetry. Beowulf's character changes halfway through in a way that is in no way credible, and whenever he's in an action scene, he's constantly flipping like a hyper gymnast. There is even, as they say, a "token black guy" whose attempts at humor are completely out of place. And, of course, the daughter of the leader of the outpost Grendel is terrorizing is a total vixen. A vixen whose breasts are exposed throughout the entire movie. A vixen who wants to fight the creature, yet she never puts on armor. And her weapon of choice is a little carving knife. And despite their dire situation, she still dresses up for dinner, in a dress with a see-through skirt that exposes her short-shorts underwear. There are a couple scenes that could pass as soft core pornography, and in the second scene they even reuse footage from the first. I thought the portrayal of Grendel was bad enough, but then came the end of the film, which featured a display of CGI that might be decent for the 80s, but is totally ridiculous for a late 90s venture. I could go on, but you all should watch this film for the fully laughable effect yourselves.
The other club members and I did manage to have fun watching this by taking a cue from MST 3K and mocking it the whole way through. I'm still reeling from an extra's weapon: a perpetually spinning pizza cutter on a pole.