Category: Reviews

Review: “Peter Pan”

~ James Viscosi ~ 3 Comments

So this week’s Netflix selection was Peter Pan, the live-action version from 2003, not the animated Disney film. I had originally planned to do this as a double feature with Finding Neverland but we ended up watching them several weeks apart. (Finding Neverland put my wife to sleep almost immediately despite the fact that it starred Johnny Depp, but that’s because she was very tired.)

Anyway, Peter Pan is of course the story of how a small company introduced a new brand of peanut butter that eventually became part of the ConAgra Foods inventory of products … oh, wait, that’s not it. Ehhh, you know what Peter Pan is about so I won’t bother to rehash it. I will say that the film has an excellent cast, particularly Jason Isaacs as George Darling/Captain Hook (even if I did keep expecting Hook to say “My name is Inigo Montoya … you killed my father … prepare to die.”) and Rachel Hurd-Wood as Wendy, not to mention the guy who played Smee, who was just about perfect. (IMDB says his name is Richard Briers. Well done Richard.) We also get Olivia Williams sitting in a chair pining for her children in a fashion that gave me Sixth Sense Olivia-Williams-Pining flashbacks, but if you’re going to flash back, that’s a good movie to go to. Finally, Ludivine Sagnier makes a saucy little Tinkerbell, even if I have no idea how to pronounce her name, because she’s French.

Although it’s probably technically a children’s movie, there are enough humorous asides going on in Peter Pan to keep the grownups amused. (Most of these involve Smee and/or Michael’s teddy bear.) It gets quite dark toward the end, culminating in the climactic fight between Hook and Pan. Let’s just say that if you’re having a midlife crisis or anything, you may want to avoid this film; it’s not going to make you feel any better about your lost youth.

Peter Pan is basically one long CG effect with actors in it, but for once, the special effects do not get in the way of the story. In fact they’re gorgeous, and greatly enhance the overall fantastical feel. It’s like the entire film is set inside a Maxfield Parrish painting. I would recommend checking out some of the “making-of” special features, as the techniques used to create the effects (crew in head to toe blue suits — freaky!!!!) are quite interesting.

This movie put my wife to sleep in about an hour — not bad for a fantasy film starring a bunch of kids and not featuring a single appearance by Johnny Depp.

Hook & Inigo — Separated At Birth?

Review: “Idiocracy”, or, “Mike Judge Says It’s YOUR Fault The World Is Going To Hell”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

So the other day we watched Idiocracy, which tells the story of a man who is put into cryogenic sleep and awakes centuries later to become an interplanetary delivery boy in a world populated by aliens, robots, and talking severed heads. Oh, no, sorry, that’s Futurama. Actually, Idiocracy is the story of Joe, who (along with a woman named Rita) is part of an army cryogenics experiment that goes awry. When Joe and Rita awaken 500 years after being frozen, they discover that the world is populated by rejects from the early elimination phase of shows like American Idol, Survivor, and The Real World, as well as the sort of people who try to emulate the things they see on shows like Jackass. (Somehow, despite being complete morons, they manage to keep all their high-tech equipment more or less functional. We can probably assume this equipment is serviced by robots like Bender [Futurama again, sorry].)

The conceit behind this dystopian future is that all the smart people dithered too much over having kids until it was too late, or only had one or two, while the nitwits from Jerry Springer were popping out offspring by the dozen, until eventually they more or less took over the world. This conceit is so plausible that it’s actually frightening.  (I don’t see any kids running around the house here. Sorry, Mike. Do dogs count?)

Anyway, when our hero, average Joe (his name is, literally, Joe), awakens to this new reality, writer/director Mike Judge has plenty of satirical ammunition, which he expends cheerfully obliterating everything from ubiquitous product placement and corporate sponsorship to “reality” shows like Ow My Balls to mass-market consumerism to monster truck rallies. He even gets in a few digs at Child Protective Services that are only marginally less realistic than what we saw earlier in August Rush. While not quite up to the level of his earlier Office Space, there are a number of giggles to be had in Idiocracy.  The relentless stupidity of the future population does eventually get a little wearing, but if nothing else, the President and his cabinet members have plenty of flair.

Idiocracy put my wife to sleep in about 45 minutes, which is pretty good for satire. I definitely heard her laughing once or twice, too.

Book-In-Progress Review: “World Without End”

~ James Viscosi ~ 3 Comments

Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth is one of my favorite books (even before Oprah featured it), so when the quasi-sequel World Without End came out, I immediately wish-listed it over on BookMooch. A few weeks later it arrived in an enormous package — this is one massive book, just like its predecessor. I’m not that far into it yet so I can’t do a full review, but I can say that it doesn’t hook the reader immediately the way that Pillars did. However, it does seem to be better than the last Follett book I read, Night Over Water.

One thing that is obvious already, though, is that the author’s breast fetish is operating at full tilt — pretty much every single female character who wanders across the page has her breasts stared at, felt up, fantasized over, or otherwise put front and center (so to speak) of her character’s description. Some would suggest, accurately, that all this indicates is that Ken Follett is a dude. But come on, Ken! We’re supposed to at least pretend to occasionally raise our gaze above chest level! You’re going to make the ladies paranoid, and that’ll just make it tougher on all of us …

Having said that, I have of course written my share of such descriptions, especially in my vampire book, Long Before Dawn (available now!). But you know how vampires are; being dead and all, they don’t have many amusements besides stalking humans and drinking blood (Spike’s addiction to the soap opera Passions notwithstanding; most vampires don’t have television in their crypts), so they spend a lot of time being horny.  Which, I guess, makes them not so different from Ken Follett and the rest of us guys … 😉

Review: “Enchanted”

~ James Viscosi ~ 2 Comments

So the other night we watched Disney’s Enchanted. First, a caveat: My wife can’t stand Disney princess cartoons. They rank one notch above anime in her book, with their huge-eyed tiny-waisted opera-voiced waifish heroines. Enchanted, of course, is Disney’s spoof of their own canon. It’s not a spoof in the way that Scary Movie is a spoof of Scream, though, but more the way that Scream is a spoof of other slasher flicks — if you’re not paying attention, it looks like the thing it’s poking gentle fun at. (Make extra sure to listen to the lyrics of the songs, especially “Happy Working Song”.)

Enchanted boasts an excellent cast, particularly Amy Adams and Patrick Dempsey as the principals. (I still have trouble looking at Patrick Dempsey and not seeing the kid from Can’t Buy Me Love but that’s because, as we discussed in the 16 Blocks review, I’m old. And a guy.) James Marsden is quite funny as the dimwitted, self-centered, but good-hearted cartoon prince, and unleashes not a single optic blast; Timothy Spall is a hoot as his sidekick. The movie contains no serious stumbles or wasted scenes until the very end, with a rather unnecessary and incongruous climactic fight between the heroes and the evil queen (gleefully played by Susan Sarandon). They even get the dance frame more or less correct for the big waltz scene, although someone could have at least choreographed a few twinkles or promenades or sahsays instead of just a bunch of lady’s underarm turns. But, you can’t have everything.

My wife stayed awake for the entire movie, although afterwards she tried to claim that it wasn’t really that good of a film. But hey, a rating system is a rating system, and I didn’t really see her doing anything besides watch Enchanted for 100 minutes or so.

Review: “August Rush”

~ James Viscosi ~ 22 Comments

So we watched August Rush tonight at our friends’ house around the corner. I wouldn’t normally do two reviews back to back, but I wanted to get this one done while the memory of this claptrap was still fresh.

August Rush is the story of a boy named Evan who’s in an orphanage but dreams of finding his parents. All I can say, after having seen this movie, is: <KRONK VOICE> “Riiiiiiiiight.”

WARNING: Spoilers follow. If you plan to see August Rush (please God, don’t do it), you may want to stop reading.

Continue reading “Review: “August Rush”” →

Review: “16 Blocks”

~ James Viscosi ~ 3 Comments

So last night my wife wanted to veg and watch a movie, because she’s had a long, hard week at work. Let’s see, what do we have from Netflix … hmm … looks like we have 16 Blocks and Ghost in the Shell. She already knows that 16 Blocks is a cop movie with Bruce Willis where “lots of people get shot”. She has never heard of Ghost in the Shell.

WIFE: What’s Ghost in the Shell?
ME: It’s a classic anime movie.
WIFE: Anime. <PITCHES VOICE REALLY HIGH> That’s where the girls all talk like this and giggle hee hee hee!!!! all the time.
ME: I don’t think Ghost in the Shell is like that … it’s a classic, like Akira and Cowboy Bebop.
WIFE: Mmm. We’ll watch 16 Blocks.

So now we know that although my wife hates cop movies where lots of people get shot (except for Running Scared, which she loved, but that’s a comedy so it doesn’t really count), she hates anime more. In goes 16 Blocks.

16 Blocks is of course the film in which Bruce Willis’s broken-down alcoholic guilt-ridden limping cop has to escort Mos Def’s oft-unintelligible (I had to turn on subtitles to understand all his dialog) witness 16 blocks to the courthouse so he can testify before a grand jury. He has to do this by 10am, or the jury’s term ends and the testimony becomes moot. Unfortunately, Bruce Willis is unaware that Mos Def is going to testify against some dirty cops, including Willis’s ex-partner, played by David Morse. If this reminds you a little bit of the Clint Eastwood film The Gauntlet (at one point, our heroes even end up on a bus, surrounded by heavily armed cops) then congratulations — you’re old!

All of this may sound like I’m dissing 16 Blocks, but I’m not. I actually quite enjoyed it. The performances from the three principals are excellent (anything with David Morse in it is worth watching), and in several cases where the film could have gone the Hollywood blockbuster route, it didn’t. 16 Blocks put my wife to sleep in about 45 minutes, which is rather astonishing for a film of this nature; not only that, but when she woke up, she was actually interested in how it ended.

A note about the alternate ending: It’s good to see that the filmmakers considered doing something a little unusual with the denouement, but unfortunately, the alternate ending just didn’t work for me. A big theme of the film is that people can change, but in the alternate ending, they changed a little too quickly for my taste. It’s still worth checking out, though.

Review: “The Chronicles of Riddick”

~ James Viscosi ~ 4 Comments

It’s probably no surprise that “Pitch Black” is one of my favorite movies of all times. Believe it or not, it’s also one of my wife’s favorite movies. (I still can’t quite get my head around that one.) We had never gotten around to seeing the sequel, “The Chronicles of Riddick”, until last week. It was … okay. I kind of figure the studio’s conversation with David Twohy, went something like this:

Studio: Hey, David Twohy, that movie “Pitch Black” was popular and cool! Here is ten times more money to make the sequel!
David Twohy: Hey thanks studio! Now I can buy all kinds of special effects and CGI! Woo-hoo!
<MUCH LATER>
David Twohy: Uh-oh, I spent all my money on special effects and CGI and now I don’t have anything left for a script! Now what?!?!?!
Vin Diesel: Let’s raid Shakespeare.

“The Chronicles of Riddick” put my wife to sleep in about 30 minutes, which is actually pretty good for a SF film. It’s too bad she didn’t stay awake longer because “CoR” actually improves as it goes along (the friends we watched it with may disagree with me) and would likely benefit from a repeat viewing (the friends we watched it with may REALLY disagree with me). As noted above, it’s got some Shakespearean elements (think “Macbeth” in space) and some Biblical elements (which are spoiler-ish, so I won’t reveal what they are). Unfortunately, the bad guys suffer from a Borg-ish “assimilate or die” look and mentality. If your villains are going to channel the Borg, they’d better be scarier than the Borg, and these folks aren’t. Plus they have bad haircuts.

Anyway, the bottom line is: Don’t go in expecting another “Pitch Black” and you won’t be (too) disappointed.

A Note About Reviews

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

So I’ve decided not to use the boring old A-B-C-D-F scale for rating movies.  Instead, I’ll rate them by how fast they would put my wife to sleep.  For instance, Dragons of Autumn Twilight would put her to sleep in about five minutes.  (This doesn’t count time that she spends awake making fun of the movies before getting bored and falling asleep.)  The “This Puts My Wife To Sleep” scale will go from “Immediately” (J-Men Forever)  to “An Hour” (The Namesake), while the very best (Pan’s Labyrinth) will get a “Didn’t Put My Wife To Sleep At All” rating.

Books don’t put her to sleep, and she doesn’t play video games, but I’ll use the same scale for them.  We’ll just pretend.

A Review: Dragons of Autumn Twilight DVD

~ James Viscosi ~ 2 Comments

My wife thought I should write some reviews … I’m probably not a good choice for a reviewer because I like almost every movie I see. I’m a little harder on books and video games, but not by much. Still, it might be fun to play Leonard Maltin (Chef: “That thing just beat the crap out of Leonard Maltin and Sidney Poitier!”) now and then.

So, having just declared that I like almost every movie I see, let me start with one that I didn’t like all that much.

Continue reading “A Review: Dragons of Autumn Twilight DVD” →