Category — Movies

I just watched the new Narnia trailer, and, as I feared, I am not impressed with the talking animals.

Other than that, it looks to be an amazing movie.

The girls have been excited about this movie since they first saw pictures of it. I thought it would be pretty good, too.
But, we (Megan and I) watched it last night, to preview it for the girls. Friday is movie day, and that is what they were going to watch today. But we decided that we wouldn’t let them.

I was really disappointed with it. Basically, I didn’t let the girls watch it because I don’t want them to start talking the way they did in the film. Way too much potty humor.

The movie was mildly entertaining for an adult, that understands all the references to pop culture of today, and yesterday. There were a few segments that were really cool to watch. Like the ‘cross town express’ scene. That was very elaborate, and watching it was exciting.

As far as the story goes, eh. Not too exciting. It’s the story of the little guys banding together to beat the big guys. Not much of an original twist on it, either.

My advice? Stick with A Bug’s Life.

p.s. – for those concerned about movie day for the girls, they went to pick out another one.

We borrowed Ice Age from some friends, and I watched it with G & A last night while Megan was out doing a bit of birthday shopping.

It was okay. It wasn’t excellent like, say, The Iron Giant, but I liked it. The characters were a little forced, but I figured it’s a kids movie, so they wanted to exagerate things a bit so they get it. It has a clear redemptive theme… and even a sacrificial death and resurrection.

The concern with the film, I guess, is the billions of years/evolutionary aspects of it. But, to be honest, I can’t tell if the film is openly mocking evolution, or is just buried so far under the icons of evolution that it doesn’t know it is mocking evolution. In any case, I didn’t see much danger in it.

There was one part where a man cuddled up with his baby… and at that point in the movie, Ashley scooted towards me and cozied herself up against me. That was fun.

Yesterday I picked up the 10th Anniversary Edition Toy Story dvd. I called it a birthday present for Fiona. She’ll enjoy it at some point, so it’s valid. Right?

Haven’t watched it yet. Probably won’t get to it until Friday, when the girls get to watch a movie. I rented a film Monday night that we still haven’t watched. It’s one that was plugged by the good folks at St. Anne’s Pub. The Emperor’s Club. They say it’s a wise film. We may get to it this evening.

Back to Toy Story, I did watch a few of the extras on it… a few deleted scenes (that weren’t fully animated.. just sketches), and the sneak peek at Cars. Exciting is the announcement that Toy Story 2 is releasing on dvd this December. That can be Fiona’s Christmas present. wink, wink.

Last night we decided to watch a movie, and Megan was in the mood for a romantic girlyish movie, so I chose Wedding Date.

It was entertaining, and had a few good laughs. There are some really nice jewels buried in the film, like we all have our issues, and we need to deal with them, and we deal with them by confessing them. Also forthrightness being far superior to sneaking and being tricky, or being overly afraid of offending anyone, or doing something unexpected.

In these ways, it reminded me a lot of An Ideal Husband, but only a less intelligent, less mature, modern telling.

There was one seen where a couple sleep together. We fast forwarded it, and it wasn’t too bad. Worse than that, you see a guy’s backside as he steps into the shower.

There’s also one scene in particular that’s pretty crude, and small sex jokes pop up here and there (from one character in particular… a rather unappealing character).

Anyhow… I’m still working on my scale for rating movies. Presently, I’m going with a ten star scale, and I give this 6 stars. I’d recommend An Ideal Husband instead of it (which, going from memory, I’d give 8 stars).

We watched this a few weeks back.

Poor cat.

We watched The Reckoning recently. I saw a trailer for it on another small film dvd, and thought it looked worth watching. It stars Willem Dafoe and Paul Bettany. Paul Bettany you may recognize as Dr. Maturin in Master and Commander.

Bettany plays a priest that is on the run for past sin. He comes across an acting troupe, led by Dafoe’s character. They come to a town, and end up putting on a play quite different from their normal, bible story acts. They instead tell the story of the murder of a young boy in the town, opening up what really happened to the boy, which turns out to be all rather involved and mysterious.

There is one scene that is a bit risque. Nothing explicit, really, but definitely more than suggestive. This is the second movie we’ve watched recently that has weird homosexual things going on in the story. This part is well done if you’re going to do it, but it does leave you a bit disturbed.

The title comes from a line of narration in the play,

There is one scene, at the climax of the story, which reminds me a lot of Collateral. Human desires, when left unrestrained, will lead to moral chaos. When God is not acknowledged as Law-Giver, then there will be only autonomy.

I guess after thinking a bit more purposefully about it, I think it probably is worth watching. It is profitable to work through the story and its themes.

There’s a 10th Anniversary edition of Toy Story coming out September 6th.

That happens to be Fiona’s birthday, and I know what I’m getting ‘her’.

Hopefully this means Toy Story 2 will be re-releasing on DVD, too.

Yesterday I returned my previous batch of movies to the library, and, since Megan is feeling a bit under the weather, I got a couple more. So, last night we watched Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.

I had read the first book, so I had somewhat of an idea of the mood of the story and so forth. I thought the movie did that pretty well. I enjoyed watching it, but I can’t really think of any real lessons it presents. I guess they were pushing the ‘family is home, be happy you’ve got them’ idea.

Jim Carey was funny. I thought Violet was great, Claude was good, but pretty far from his bookish book counterpart. Sonny was funny. The movie, if you are unfamiliar, is based on the first three books in the series, so I learned quite a bit more about the storyline from the film. That made it interesting, but makes any sequel seem pretty pointless. Which is fine with me, really. I’m just sayin’.

We watched Saved! last week… I don’t remember when it was. Thursday or Friday… I don’t remember.

Anyhow… I knew it was an anti-christian film and a preachy one at that, but I was curious about it. And, since the library had it, and I didn’t have to pay to watch it, I figured I’d check it out.

It’s about students at a Christian high school. Much of it is mockery of typical evangelicalism in the U.S. It was, of course, an exageration, but it made that point well…. that much of evangelical culture is pietistic, insincere, and… well, stupid. I laughed at several of these moments.

However, the film was all about pushing tolerance. The gay guy, and the unbelievers… they should all be accepted for who they are, because, hey, ‘it’s all too much to live up to.’

In the end, I felt like the whole movie was fake. It was very artificial… just a setup to push the agenda. It never felt real. Other movies are written just to carry a message, but they don’t feel like it. Those story can feel real. The story carries the message. But with Saved!, it was all canned.

We watched The Empire Strikes Back dvd this past weekend. There were two changes that I recall… one rather major, another rather minor, but inciting major chagrin.

The first is the discussion between Vader and the Emperor. First, they replaced the image of the Emperor with Ian McDiarmid. That’s a change I can live with. No damage done, and the old one did look pretty stupid.
They also changed the dialogue. They made it explicit that Luke was the ‘seed fo Skywalker’. Of course, that seems pretty obvious, but, whatever. They also made Vader seem like he was surprised by this, though. I guess it doesn’t contradict anything… but I would have thought Vader could tell on his own. Especially since he had his whole plot to have Luke join him and take the Emperor out. So that was a bit weird.

The other change was the redubbing of Boba Fett’s voice. ANNOYING. They (I keep saying “they”, but really I should probably be saying “he”, referring to Lucas) had Temuera Morrison speak Boba Fett’s lines. That’d be okay, but the delivery was completely changed. If Boba Fett had spoken the way he does in the dvd edition, I am convinced that he would never have taken off as the cult figure he is. It’s way too pansy.

Did I miss any other changes?

So, we watched Hitch last night. I thought it had some very funny parts, and was basically a fun movie. Pretty predictable, but still interesting. The funny parts were some of the funniest things I’ve seen in a movie for a while. Probably since we saw Elf. I was laughing pretty heartily for almost one entire scene.

There was some trite, trashy dialogue thrown in here and there. Some of it had a purpose in character development, but those aren’t the more offensive moments. The offensive parts, as best as I can guess, are there to get a few laughs. Especially since this movie is a chick-flick morphed to be more open to male viewers. I was impressed, though, that neither of the two couples the film focuses on sleep together.

There was a conscious attempt to make the film anti-misogynist, and that is a message delivered on the surface. The comments I referred to above, though, contradict that sentiment. So, while it tries to respect women, and say that guys that sleep around without any commitment are jerks, it fails to thoroughly communicate this, from top to bottom. Several times, women exclaim about their lack of coitus for X length of time. These are the comments that are supposed to be funny, but really aren’t. Instead, they make the women appear to be like the male jerks the film condemns. I’m sure there’s a touch of feminism in there… but in the end, I think it objectifies women and makes them sexual toys. These, again, are the conclusions I draw from some of the foundational things the filmmakers chose (probably unconsciously) to do, and you really only notice if you think critically about the film. And that from a Christian perspective. But, the primary message of the film is a good one, for the most part.

I enjoyed how the film showed that women want to be respected, and want to be honored. In our day and age, it is common to think that women are just the same as men. Egalitarianism and all that rot. But the film struck at the truth when it made ladies fall for the men that listen to them, think about them, and work hard at pleasing them. When the man cherishes the woman, she reciprocates.