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Hannah Montana (2006)
Way too fast-paced for my tastes.
Disney seems to be becoming the next Nickelodeon with a huge number of live action sitcoms. However, none of these Disney sitcoms seem to be good as the *early* sitcoms by Nickelodeon. Hannah Montana is a major, and I mean MAJOR, example of Disney's poorly developed sitcoms.
The premise is very simple. It's just a girl living a double life as a pop star and an ordinary girl. Sadly, I do not see this premise as the focus in all episodes. What you get is just 30 minutes of a so-called "laugh-fest".
Laugh-fest? I am not saying THIS is funny. What I mean is the constant use of the laugh track. It plays nearly 20-30 times per scene and it makes every line sound like a poorly delivered punchline and drones out of the dialogue. It was odd how I was told that the whole series was recorded in front of a live audience without any laugh tracks, but I doubt it.
The gags are also poorly written and executed. Of course we know what Billy Ray Cyrus looked like in his "Achy Breaky Heart" years, but repeatedly joking about his mullet and his character looking like the REAL Ray Cyrus already got old since they uttered them from the beginning. I Find it strange why the "audience" always die-laughing from line to line to characters just screaming out words and sprint away. This has been done countless times.
I don't know what else to say about Hannah Montana rather than the atrocity of the series. The jokes are overused, the dialogue is too fast and pretty much everything is hokey. It would have been better if they just decrease the use of laugh track by 50%.
A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila (2007)
A true piece of a broken gem.
You may have heard her songs. You may have seen her in magazine shots. You may have added or saw her MySpace page. She is Tila Tequila, possibly one of the most recognizable faces on the internet scene.
I am surprised how atrocious this program is. It is just like any MTV reality show in terms of sexual moments, non-stop censored profanity, somewhat dramatic and the use of very, yet poorly made, intense music to pump our blood on something that was finished filming a year before it was aired, which is pretty long to film one, terrible season.
How clichéd is it when it is time to kick contestants off? Well, it is quite obvious. If it's for guys, they would slowly express their feelings for Tila. And for girls, they would just immediately burst into tears and rant to get another chance even though they're despised by other contestants including viewers like me.
In short, I don't have much to say about this program. It focuses too much on Tila's bisexuality so MTV can win more viewers, which works, but I'm glad the series is over.
Why is it over? Because no one REALLY won the two seasons. First winner's relationship was immediately over before the series premiere and the second winner fails to accept.
Smart Guy (1997)
Mediocre at best, but kickstarts WB channel
Smart Guy is one of WB's sitcom programs with prominent African-Americans including the Parent Hood. However, They lasted just a few years since viewers were not huge on WB.
Smart Guy is basically about...A smart guy named TJ. The title character is just a young prodigy with a questionable past. The key point of the series is he is in high school and still acts like an elementary student. However, he can tutor and create ideas with his little mind.
Episodes may have a strong plot, but the plot is simply reckoned by the excessive laugh track and one-liners to cover more time. Another poor point is that how there is a small cast of white actors portraying really out of control characters but these characters are not stereotypical such as the Coach Gerber, who is suffering from prostate problems.
About 5 minutes before the episode ends, it gets really serious between TJ and the others. He's just a young kid who cares about himself and his family. The third season had more serious conflicts since the characters showed a lot of change.
Overall, it's mediocre at best since it's similar to Boy Meets World but with more mature personality rather than over-the-top moments.
The Simpsons Movie (2007)
A Successful Adapted Film
The Simpsons are still running for over 15 years on television as America's favorite animated family. The characters, settings, catchphrases and humor are easily recognizable by fans and non-fans. After a stressful work on the script with over 10 writers and almost 3 years of animation, it gives us a near-perfect lengthy film that can be considered as an episode to the big screen. And by the way, all of the original voice actors are in there including celebrities and brief cameos.
Word on the story says that Homer makes Springfield out of control after a news report found a dumped silo (with Homer's name) under Lake Springfield, which was recently cleaned by the citizens. After the EPA catch a multi-eyed creature caused by the polluted lake, the evil rich EPA head Russ Cargill (Albert Brooks) fools President Schwarzenneger (A brown-haired Wolfcastle) by making him choose one of the 5 unstoppable plans twice, cover Springfield with a glass dome and attempting to bomb Springfield. The Simpson family sets off to hide somewhere safe after escaping the mob by jumping into a sinkhole on a sandbox, discovered by Maggie.
The story worked pretty well for a Simpsons first feature so far. It is completely more focused than the television series, since the script is more intense and deeper yet still retain to cram a load of humor in there. The introduction of new original characters helped though Russ Cargill is usually the most developed new character from beginning to end. However, key characters such as Plopper the Pig and Colin should have more roles but it's the SIMPSONS MOVIE, we need to focus on the family. Ha.
The animation is much, much more detailed, fast-paced and smoother than the series because it is in a widescreen format. It lets the animators to add more frames by making the characters talk with many movements. The angry mob scene worked really well for it's widescreen format. CGI backgrounds and objects are also a nice addition but it makes the 2D animation a bit flat in my opinion.
The voice work in the film is top-notch and showed more expressions than a single episode of the series. All the original actors done their voices but too bad most of them had brief lines such as Skinner and Nelson. Cameos from Green Day and Tom Hanks (Yes, THE Tom Hanks) suits their animated counterpart. The emotional scene of Marge ditching Homer to risk their lives to save Springfield was touching, which I considered to be one of the best scenes in the film.
The humor worked pretty well in it's progress. The first half did have a fistful of sight gags while the other half has a number of comical lines. The nude-boarding with Bart was seriously unpredictable for a PG-13 film, because of a brief...Well, it kinda broke the child nudity rule in an animated film. Some of the humor were flat, such the iron-ball slapstick with Homer was cheesy at it's best, since it's more of a Family Guy gag.
Despite the brief screen time of favorite secondary characters and a partially-broken plot, The Simpsons Movie is an excellent animated film to watch for hardcore fans and film-goers. It raises more hell than Hellraiser that you would desperately want a sequel, which is a possibility.
Props to Matt Groening and his team for doing such a rough work on their first film ever on the Simpsons franchise.
Shrek the Third (2007)
Shrek = Going Downhill?
Shrek and Shrek 2 are one of Dreamworks' most successful animated films, and perhaps the only successful films to feature fairy tale elements combined with zany humor and a jar full of characters.
Is Shrek the Third the next installment that I hope it would be good? STT may be a true sequel but it feels like a re-telling story of Shrek 2 with new characters and elements. Basically, Shrek is now King after Fiona's father died. But the bad thing is, he doesn't want to be a king and decides to find a perfect one. As Fiona reveals Shrek that she is pregnant, Shrek can't stop thinking about raising children as his adventure sets.
The anti-heroic side? Prince Charming is going to take over Far Far Away after Shrek departs to find Arthur/Artie with a load of bad guys from various fairy tales. His goal is to execute Shrek to take over as the King.
The whole film is very clichéd I have to admit. The pacing is much like the second one without the ho-hum searching for the next king, so there's not much variety in it.
The humor is just like the other Shrek films. Pop culture infested jokes are in every scene including a number of inside jokes. Some may be good and some may be inspired. The Led Zeppelin bit was amusing but doesn't really suit the film. Funny how it is a brief cover of the Immigrant Song due to licensing issues. The weakest bit would be Shrek entertaining the audience as he tends to make non-graphic homosexual references to Charming's flamboyant image.
Voice work is top-notch and a large cast of famous actors and actresses reprise their roles such as Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy. Some other famed stars with brief voice work include Eric Idle and Seth Rogen.
The animation didn't age much, but a huge number of new environment settings did work out for the film.
Overall, The Third was a decent sequel at its best yet forgettable. We still get more sequels and I hope they would live up to the first and the second film.
Koroshiya 1 (2001)
If Miike created Kill Bill with Japanese horror elements...
Ichi The Killer is easily one of the most grotesque gory films of history, along with Miike's other trachea trembling film, Audition.
Ichi is simply a killer who desperately needs to brutally murder people with his bladed shoes in order to feel pleasure, but the bad thing is he couldn't help it. He killed the boss of Kakihara, a sadistic, pain-loving gangster who does many shocking favors to others such as being beaten and the infamous on-screen tongue cutting scene.
Ichi The Killer is filled with things that a Miike fan wants. Guts, Gore, One-Liners, Violence, Torture, Violent Rape, and Nudity. All these on-screen elements create a true gore-fest from Miike along with many relatively unknown actors.
The only disadvantages I had was the odd plot, because it was hard to describe from the film to your head. Also, The film is not safe to watch, at all. It can easily make you give up watching the whole film despite the mixture of realistic torture and over-the-top murders.
Would Kakihara able to defeat the violent Ichi as an honor to his deceased boss? Find out by yourself, I can't spoil the ending. It's a completely shocking ending and it's totally worth the blood.